i  Colonial  Homesteads 
And  Their  Stories 


By 

Marion   Maria 

Author  of  "  Where  Ghosts  Walk,"  etc. 

Hall  in  Jurnel  Mansion 
Two  Vplumes  in  One 


With  167  Illustrations 


G.  P.  Putnam's  S 
New  York  and  London 
Cbe    imtcfcerbocker   press 
1912 


» Colonial  Homesteads  > 
And  Their  Stories 


By 


I    i 


Marion   Harland 

Author  of  "  Where  Ghosts  Walk,"  etc. 


Two  Volumes  in  One 


With  167  Illustrations 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  and  London 

Gbe    fmfcfterbocfter    prees 

1912 


Copyright,  1897  an^  1899 

BY 

MARY  VIRGINIA  TERHUNE 


"Cbe  ftntcfeerbocber  preaa,  Hew  HJorfe 


To 
THE  HONORABLE  WILLIAM  WIRT  HENRY 

MY   FAITHFUL  AND   HELPFUL   FRIEND 

THIS    VOLUME 

IS   GRATEFULLY   AND   AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED 


Publisher's  Note 

HpHESE  charming  stories  of  Colonial  life 
were  originally  issued  in  two  volumes, 
under  the  titles  of  Some  Colonial  Homesteads 
and  More  Colonial  Homesteads. 

The  author  combines  the  accuracy  of  an 
historian    with    the    charm    of    a   story-teller. 

She  has  studied  patiently  and  lovingly  the 
traditions  and  historical  associations  that  clus- 
ter about  the  old  family  estates  founded  by 
notable  Americans  of  the  Colonial  period. 
How  rich  and  varied  is  this  lore,  none  can 
comprehend  who  have  not,  like  her,  visited 
the  storied  homes  in  person  and  had  access 
to  the  family  archives  in  each.  Every  house 
has  its  romance.  The  loves,  the  feuds,  the 
tempers,  the  sports,  and  the  tragedies  revealed 
by  such  research  are  interwoven  with  descrip- 
tions of  the  houses  as  we  see  them  to-day, 
and  faithful  pen-pictures  of  the  worthies  who 
built  and  lived  in  them  when  the  history  of 
the  country  was  in  making. 


PREFACE. 

THE  stories  that  make  romantic  the  Colo- 
nial Homesteads  described  in  this  work, 
were  collected  during  visits  paid  by  myself  to 
those  historical  shrines.  The  task  was  a  labor 
of  love  throughout,  and  made  yet  more  de- 
lightful by  the  generous  kindness  of  those  to 
whom  I  applied  for  assistance  in  gathering, 
classifying,  and  sifting  materials  for  my  book. 
Family  records,  rare  old  histories,  manuscript 
letters,  valuable  pictures,  and  personal  remi- 
niscences, were  placed  at  my  disposal  with 
gracious  readiness  that  almost  deluded  me, 
the  recipient,  into  the  belief  that  mine  was  the 
choicer  blessing  of  the  giver.  The  pilgrimage 
to  each  storied  home  was  fraught  with  pleasures 
which  I  may  not  share  with  the  public. 

I  have  conscientiously  studied  accuracy  in 
the  historical  outlines  that  frame  my  sketches, 


Vlll 


Preface. 


giving  to  Tradition,  "  the  elder  sister  of  His- 
tory," only  such  credit  as  is  rightfully  hers. 

Thanks  are  due  to  Harper  &  Brothers  for 
permission  to  reprint  from  Harper  s  Weekly 
the  chapter  entitled  "Jamestown  and  Williams- 
burg." That  upon  Varina  was  published  in 
part  and  under  another  title  in  1892  in  The 
Cosmopolitan  Magazine. 

Marion    Harland. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  I. 

CHAPTER  pAGE 

I. — Brandon — Lower  and  Upper      .         .  r 

II. — Westover 33 

III. — Shirley    .......  63 

IV. — The  Marshall  House  .         .         .         .  84 

V. — Cliveden 104 

VI. — The    Morris   House,  Germantown, 

(Philadelphia) 131 

VII. — The   Schuyler   and    Colfax    Houses, 

Pompton,  New  Jersey         .         .         .  141 

VIII. — The  Van  Cortlandt  Manor-House  .  171 

IX. — Oak  Hill  upon  the  Livingston  Manor  201 

X. — Oak  Hill  upon  the  Livingston  Manor 

(Concluded) 221 

XI. — The  Philipse  Manor-House         .         .  239 

XII. — The  Jumel  Mansion.    On  Washington 

Heights,  New  York  City           .         .  276 

ix 


Contents. 


XIII. — The  Jumel  Mansion.    On  Washington 

Heights,    New   York   City.      (Con- 
cluded)        .         .  .         .         .     306 

XIV. — The  Smith  House  at  Sharon,  Conn.   .     327 

XV. — The    Pierce    House   in    Dorchester, 

Massachusetts 346 

XVI. — The  "  Parson  Williams  "    House    in 

Deerfield,  Massachusetts        .         .     375 

XVII. — The  "Parson  Williams"  House  in 
Deerfield,  Massachusetts.  (Con- 
cluded)          403 

XVIII. — Varina.     The  Home  of  Pocahontas,     432 

XIX. — Jamestown  and  Williamsburg    .         .471 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  II. 

I. — Johnson  Hall,  Johnstown,  New  York 

II. — Johnson  Hall,  Johnstown,  New  York 
(Concluded)  .... 

III. — La  Chaumiere  Du  Prairie,  near  Lex 
ington,  Kentucky 

iv. — morven,     the    stockton    homestead 
Princeton,    New   Jersey 

v. m.orven,    the    stockton    homestead 

Princeton,  New  Jersey  (Concluded) 

VI. — Scotia,    the    Glen-Sanders    House 
Schenectady,  New  York    . 

VII. — Two    Schuyler    Homesteads,    Albany 
New  York 

viii.  —  doughoregan    manor  i    the    carroll 
Homestead,  Maryland 

ix. doughoregan    manor  :    the    carroll 

Homestead,  Maryland  (Concluded) 

X. — The  Ridgely  House,  Dover,  Delaware 

XI. — Other   "Old   Dover"   Stories  and 
Houses 

xi 


41 

65 

98 

128 

155 

187 

224 

252 
285 

315 


Xll 


Contents 


XII. — Belmont    Hall,    near    Smyrna,    Dela- 
ware,    .......     346 

XIII. — Langdon  and   Wentworth    Houses  in 

Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire     .         .     380 

XIV. — Langdon  and   Wentworth  Houses   in 

Portsmouth,  New    Hampshire  (Con-     412 
cluded) 


ILLUSTRATIONS,  VOLUME  I. 


PAGE 


Hall  in  Jumel  Mansion       .         .         .         Fro?itispiece 

Lower  Brandon    .......  3 

Harrison  Coat-of-Arms 6 

Portrait  of  Colonel  Daniel  Parke           .         .  17 
"  From    Tarnished    Frames    Impassive    Faces 

Looked  down  on    Us"  .         .         .         .21 

Upper  Brandon 29 

Byrd  Coat-of-Arms 34 

Westover 35 

Portrait   of  Colonel  William   Evelyn   Byrd 

of  Westover 39 

Portrait  of  "  The  Fair  Evelyn  "       ...  45 
Colonel  Byrd's  Tomb  in  the  Garden  at  West- 
over        ........  51 

"A  Curious  Iron  Gate" 59 

Berkeley 61 

Carter  Coat-of-Arms 66 

Portrait  of  "  King  Carter"      .         ...  67 
Portrait  of  Judith  Armistead  (Wife  of  King 

Carter) 71 

Shirley .         -74 

Portrait    of     Elizabeth     Hill     Carter 

("Betty") 81 

xiii 


XIV 


Illustrations 


Marshall  House,  Richmond,  Va. 
Portrait  of  Chief-Justice  Marshall 
William   and    Mary   College,  Williamsburg, 
Va.,    of    which    John    Marshall    was    a 

Graduate       

Chew  Coat-of-Arms 

Portrait  of  Chief-Justice  Benjamin  Chew 

From  the  original  painting  in  the  National  Museum, 
Philadelphia. 

Portrait  of  "  Peggy  "  Chew        . 

Reproduced  with  permission  of  the   Century    Company 
from  the  Century  Magazine. 

Portrait  of  Colonel  John  Eager  Howard 

From  a  painting  by  Chester  Harding, 

Cliveden        .... 

Chew  Coach 

The    Morris    House,    German 

delphia). 
"  The  Coziest  of  the  Suite  " 
Washington's  Headquarters  in  Pompton,  N.  J 
"  The  Pleasant  Camping-Ground  "  . 
Schuyler  Coat-of-Arms       .... 
The  Schuyler  Homestead,  Pompton,  N.  J. 
"  The  Long,  Low,  Hip-Roofed  House" 
Van  Cortlandt  Coat-of-Arms  . 
Van  Cortlandt  Manor-House  . 
Loop-Hole  and  Brant's  Portrait  in  Dining 

Room 

Fireplace  in  Library 

The  "  Ghost-Room  " 

Livingston  Coat-of-Arms    .... 
Portrait  of  Robert   Livingston,  First  Lord 

of  Livingston  Manor 


85 
89 


99 
109 

117 

123 

127 

130 

133 
138 
i43 
i47 
r52 
159 
167 
171 
185 

189 

*93 
197 

201 
205 


Illustrations  xv 


Portrait    of    Gertrude    Schuyler     (Second 

Wife  of  Robert  Livingston) 
Robert  Livingston's  Crest 
Portrait  of  Philip  Livingston  (Second  Lord 

of  the  Manor) 

Portrait  of  John  Livingston  (Last  Lord  of 

the  Manor) 

Oak  Hill  (on  the  Livingston  Manor) 

The  "Old  Kaus  " 

Philipse  Coat-of-Arms  .... 
Philipse  Manor-House  (Yonkers,  N.  Y.)  . 
Fireplace  in  the  "  Washington  Chamber  "  of 

Philipse  Manor-House 
Mantel  and  Section  of  Ceiling  in  Drawing 

Room  of  Philipse  Manor-House  . 
Mantel  and  Mirror  of   Second-Story-Front 

Room  in  Philipse  Manor-House  . 
Memorial  Tablet  in  Philipse  Manor-House 
Roger  Morris  Coat-of-Arms 
Portrait  of  Roger  Morris 
Portrait    of    Henry    Gage    Morris,    Rear 

Admiral   in    the    British    Navy    (Son   of 

Roger  and  Mary  Morris)  . 
Portrait  of  Mary  (Philipse)  Morris  (at  the 

Age  of  95)       .         .         .         ... 

Portrait  of  Aaron  Burr  . 

The  Jumel  Mansion 

Portrait  of  Madame  Jumel 

From  the  original  painting  by  Alcide  Ercole. 

Smith  Crest 

Portrait  of  John  Cotton  Smith 

Smith  Homestead  at  Sharon,  Connecticut 


209 
215 

217 

223 
231 
235 
243 
251 

259 
263 

269 

273 
276 
280 


283 

285 
297 
3°9 
324 

327 
333 
337 


xvi  Illustrations 

PAGE 

Corner  of  Library  in  Smith  Homestead  . 

Pierce  Crest  .         .         .         . 

Pierce  Homestead,  Dorchester,  Mass.     (Buil 

in  1640)   

Nine-Doored  Parlor  in  Pierce  Homestead 

"The  Middle  Parlor"         .... 

"  The  Ripest  Bread  in  America  " 

"  The  Queen  of  the  Evening  "  . 

Williams  Crest     .         .         .  . 

Door  from  Sheldon  House,  Hacked  by  Indians 

Graves  of  Parson  Williams  and  Eunice,  his 

Wife.     (The  Tomb  on  the  Right  is  that  of 

Mrs.  Williams) 

Old  Williams  Church  and  Parsonage 
Cedar  China-Closet  from  "  Parson  Williams 

House 

"  Parson  Williams  "  House  in  Deerfield,  Mass. 

Champney  House  and  Studio 

John  SxMith's  Coat-of-Arms 

Portrait  of  Captain  John  Smith 

Tower  of  Old  Church,  Jamestown,  Virginia, 

in  which  Pocahontas  was  Married  . 
Portrait  of  Pocahontas  .... 
Grave  of  Powhatan,  on  James  River 

"Old  Powder-Horn" 

Portrait  of  Mary  Cary,  Washington's  First 

Love 

Interior  of  Bruton  Parish  Church,  Williams 

burg,  Va 

Portrait  of  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke  (at 

the  Age  of  30) 

From  original  portrait  by  Gilbert  Stuart. 


ILLUSTRATIONS,  VOLUME  II. 


DOUGHOREGAN     MANOR,     HOME    OF    CHARLES 

Carroll  of  Carrollton,  Maryland,  Frontispiece 


Johnson  Hall.    (Begun  in   1743.) 
Colonel  Johnson  ..... 

Old  Tryon  County  Jail  in  Johnstown.  (Built 

in  1772.) 

Joseph  Brant        ...... 

From  original  painting  at    Van   Cortlandt  Manor- 
House. 

Central  Hall  of  Johnson  Hall 
St.  John's  Church,  Johnstown,  N.  Y. 
David  Meade  at  the  Age  of  8 

From  original  painting  by    Thomas  Hudson.      Owned 
by  E.  P.   Williams,  Esq.,  of  New  York. 

Everard  Meade,  Aged  9 

Mrs.  Sarah  Waters  Meade  .         . 

From  painting  in  possession  of  E.  P.    Williams,  Esq 
of  New   York. 
Colonel  David  Meade  at  the  Age  of  85 

From  painting  in  possession  of  E.  P.  Williams,  Esq 
of  New   York. 

Wing  of  Chaumiere  Left  Standing  in  1850 

Meade  Coat  of  Arms 

Stockton  Coat  of  Arms     .... 


l5 
23 

33 
43 


53 
61 
70 


72 
81 


91 


94 

96 

100 


XV111 


Illustrations 


Anice  Stockton   .         .         .         . 

From  original  painting  in  possession  of  Mrs.  McGill. 

The  Line  of  Historic  Catalpas 
Richard  Stockton  ("  The  Signer  ") 

Morven 

Commodore  Robert  Field  Stockton 
Drawing-Room  at  Morven 
Portrait  of  Bayard  Stockton,  Esq. 
The  Giant  Horse-Chestnut  Tree    . 
Glen-Sanders  Coat  of  Arms 
Tablet  in  Scotia  Brought  from  England 
Scotia.    (Built  in   1713.)     .... 
Deborah  Glen's  Clock        .... 

Old  China  in  Scotia 

Old  Pianoforte,  Antique  Chair,  Robert  Ful 

ton's  Washstand  and  Toilet-Set 
Louis  Philippe's    Bedroom  in  Scotia 
Fort  and  Church  at  Albany,   1755 
Peter  Schuyler  ("  Quidor  ")     . 

From  original  painting  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller,  in  pos 
session  of  the  Schuyler  family. 

Schuyler  Coat  of  Arms     . 

"  The  Flatts  " 

Drawing-Room  at  "  The  Flatts  ' 

Schuyler  Mansion,  1760 

Major-General  Philip  Schuyler 

From  a  painting  by  Col.   Trumbull. 

Carroll  Coat  of  Arms 
Hall  at  Doughoregan  Manor 
Drawing-Room  at  Doughoregan  Manor 
Charles  Carroll  of  Homewood 

From  original  painting  by  Rembrandt  Peale. 

Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  1737-1832 


Illustrations 


XIX 


Ex-Governor  John   Lee  Carroll 

Interior  of  Chapel  of  Doughoregan  Manor 

Ridgely  Crest       . 

Henry  Moore  Ridgely        .... 

William  Penn's  Chair  and  Corner  of  Library 
in  Ridgely  House         .... 

Table  Owned  by  Captain  Jones,  1800,  in  Bed- 
room of  Ridgely   House 

"  The  Green,"  in  Dover     .... 

Elizabeth  Ridgely  (Daughter  of  Judge 
Henry  Moore  Ridgely),  Aged  19 

Rear  View  of  Ridgely  House  from. Garden 
(Built,   1728.)  .         .         .         . 

Woodburn,  Dover,  Delaware     . 

Mary  Vining        ...... 

From  old  Miniature. 

Ridgely  Family  Silver       . 

Fac-Simile  Signature  of  Caesar  Rodney 

Cook-Peterson  Coat  of  Arms    . 

Front  View  of  Belmont  Hall 

Vista  from  Porch  of  Belmont    Hall 

Drawing-Room  in  Belmont  Hall     . 

Staircase  of  Belmont  Hall 

Mrs.  Anne  Denny.    (Taken  at  the  Age  of  ioi 

Born   1778,  Died  1882.) 
Parlour  of   Wentworth    Mansion,  in  which 

Governor  Benning  Wentworth  was  Mar 

ried  to  Martha  Hilton  . 
Governor  Benning  Wentworth 
Langdon  Coat  of  Arms      .         .  . 

John  Wentworth,  Last  Royal    Governor  of 

New  Hampshire 


276 

281 
288 
293 

296 

301 
309 

3i7 

323 
329 
335 

34i 
345 
348 

35i 
355 
365 
37i 

377 


383 

387 
39° 

•  395 


XX 


Illustrations 


Wentworth  Hall,  Little  Harbour.  (As  it  i 
Now.) 

Old  Mantel  in  the  Council  Chamber  of  Went 
worth  Hall 

Governor  John  Langdon  .... 

From  a  painting  by  Gilbert  Stuart 

The  Governor  Langdon  Mansion    . 
Sherburne  Coat  of  Arms  .... 
Woodbury  Langdon,  1775. 

From  a  painting  by  John  Singleton  Copley 

Window  to  Edmund  and  Catherine  Langdon 

Roberts  in  St.  John's  Church  . 
Mrs.  Woodbury   Langdon  .... 

From  a  painting  by  John  Singleton  Copley. 


399 

403 
415 

423 
427 
429 


433 
437 


MORE  COLONIAL   HOMESTEADS 


Some  Colonial  Homesteads 
and  their  Stories 


BRANDON— LOWER  AND  UPPER 

CNGLISH  civilization,  of  which  the  first 
*-*  shoot  was  set  in  Virginia  at  Jamestown 
in  1607,  followed  the  course  of  the  James, — 
formerly  the  Powhatan  River — to  the  head  of 
navigation  at  Richmond  with  marvellous  ra- 
pidity when  one  considers  the  age  and  the  ob- 
stacles encountered  by  the  settlers.  So  fondly 
did  it  cling  to  the  banks  of  the  goodly  stream 
that  grants  of  estates  with  this  water-front, 
and  including  the  fertile  meadows  and  prim- 
eval forests  rolling  back  for  miles  inland,  were 
in  eager  request  until  there  were  none  left  in 
the  gift  of  the  Crown.     The  local  attachments 


2  Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

of  the  colonists  in  this  favored  region,  who 
called  their  lands  after  their  own  names,  would 
seem  to  have  been  transmitted  with  homes  and 
plantations.  Generation  has  succeeded  gene- 
ration of  what  is  known  in  the  mother-coun- 
try as  "  landed  gentry,"  estates  passing  from 
father  to  son,  or — failing  male  issue — to 
daughters  and  nieces,  until  the  names  and 
styles  of  the  Randolphs  of  Tuckahoe  and 
Presque  Isle,  the  Byrds  of  Westover,  the  Har- 
risons of  Berkeley  and  Brandon,  the  Carters 
of  Shirley,  came  to  have  the  significance  of 
baronial  titles,  and  were  woven  inextricably 
into  the  checquered  romance  we  call  The  His- 
tory of  Virginia. 

Lower  Brandon — named  in  affectionate 
memory  of  Brandon,  England — is  situated  on 
the  left  bank  of  the  James  as  one  sails  up  the 
river  from  Norfolk,  and  is  distant  about  ninety 
miles  from  Richmond.  The  original  grant 
was  made  to  John  Martin.  "  Martin's  Bran- 
don "  is  still  the  title  of  the  old  church  in  which 
are  used  chalice  and  paten  presented  by  Major 
John  Westhrope.  The  tomb  of  Elizabeth 
Westhrope,  near  by,  bears  the  date  of  1649. 
The  font  is  lettered,  "  Martin's  Brandon 
Parish,  1731." 


Brandon — Lower  and  Upper  5 

The  Brandon  plantation  passed  from  John 
Martin's  possession  to  the  estate  of  Lady 
Frances  Ingleby,  and  a  deed  from  her  con- 
veyed it  in  turn  to  Nathaniel  Harrison  of  Sur- 
rey Co.,  Virginia.  His  name  appears  in  the 
Westover  MSS.  (to  which  we  shall  presently 
refer  further)  in  conjunction  with  those  of 
"  His  Excellency  Alexr.  Spotswood,  Governor 
of  Virga"  and  "  Colo.  William  Robinson,  a 
Member  of  the  House  of  Burgs  of  Virga." 
The  three  were  deputed  to  conduct  negotia- 
tions with  the  Five  Nations,  September  1722. 
Colonel  Harrison  is  therein  styled,  "  a  Member 
of  His  Majestie's  Council  of  Virga." 

The  southeast  and  older  wing  of  the  manor- 
house  was  built  by  him  about  171 2;  a  few 
years  later  he  erected  the  northwest  wing. 
These,  with  the  main  dwelling,  are  of  dark 
red  brick,  imported  from  England.  Benjamin 
Harrison,  his  son  and  heir,  was  a  room-mate 
of  Thomas  Jefferson  at  William  and  Mary 
College,  Williamsburg.  The  intimacy  was 
continued  in  later  years,  and  after  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son's return  from  France  he  planned  the 
square  central  building  of  his  friend's  resi- 
dence. One  suspects  that  the  proprietor's 
taste    may    have    modified    his    accomplished 


6 


Some  Colonial  Homesteads 


associate's  designs,  when  we  compare  the  in- 
convenient incongruities  of  Monticello  with  the 

solid,  sensible  structure 
before  us.  The  one  ec- 
centricity is  the  orna- 
ment on  the  peak  of 
the  roof — a  white  coni- 
cal cap,  set  about  with 
drooping  pennate  leaves. 
It  may  be  a  pine-apple 
or  a  pointed  variety  of 
Dutch  cabbage. 

The.  house  was  com- 
paratively modern  when 
Benedict  Arnold  entered  the  mouth  of  the 
James,  striking  right  and  left  with  the  mad 
zeal  of  a  newly  fledged  pervert.  He  landed 
at  Brandon,  destroyed  crops,  stock,  poultry, 
and  fences,  allowed  his  men  to  use  cows  as 
targets,  and  was  guilty  of  other  fantastic  atro- 
cities, the  traditions  of  which  are  preserved  by 
those  who  had  them  from  the  lips  of  eyewit- 
nesses. At  a  subsequent  date  of  the  Revolu- 
tion a  body  of  English  troops  under  General 
Phillips  bivouacked  here  en  route  for  Peters- 
burg, at  which  place  he  died.  His  remains  lie 
in  Blandford  Cemetery. 


HARRISON  COAT-OF-ARMS. 


Brandon — Lower  and  Upper  7 

Various  modest  freeholds  purchased  from 
small  farmers  in  the  neighborhood,  were  added 
by  Nathaniel  Harrison  to  the  original  Martin 
grant,  until  the  plantation  was  one  of  the  larg- 
est and  most  valuable  on  the  James.  Yellow 
jasmine,  periwinkle,  and  the  hardy  bulbs 
known  to  our  grandmothers  as  "  butter-and- 
eggs,"  are  still  found  in  places  where  no  house 
has  stood  for  a  century,  brave  leal  mementoes 
of  cottage  and  farmstead  levelled  to  make  way 
for  the  growth  of  the  mighty  estate. 

Children  were  born,  grew  up,  and  died  in  the 
shadow  of  the  spreading  roofs  ;  accomplished 
men  of  the  race  stood  before  counsellors  and 
kings,  served  State  and  nation,  and  left  the 
legacy  of  an  unsullied  name  to  those  who 
came  after  them.  Women,  fair  and  virtuous, 
presided  over  a  home  the  hospitality  of  which 
was  noteworthy  in  a  State  renowned  for  good 
cheer  and  social  graces.  Presidents  and  their 
cabinets  ;  eminent  statesmen  of  this  country  ; 
men  and  women  of  rank  from  abroad  ;  neigh- 
bors, friends,  and  strangers  found  a  royal  wel- 
come in  the  fine  old  Virginia  house.  The 
rich  lands,  tilled  by  laborers  whose  grand- 
fathers had  occupied  the  comfortable  "  quar- 
ters "    for    which     Brandon    was    celebrated, 


8  Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

produced  harvests  that  added  yearly  to  the 
master's  wealth.  A  neat  hospital  for  the  sick 
and  infirm,  the  services  of  a  regular  physician, 
the  ministry  of  a  salaried  chaplain  and,  most 
of  all,  the  parental  care  of  the  owners,  made 
of  the  family  and  farm-servants  a  contented 
and  happy  peasantry.  It  was  a  golden  age 
of  feudalism  upon  which  the  cyclone  of  an- 
other war  swooped  with  deadlier  effects  than 
when  Arnold  directed  the  destructive  forces. 

In  1863,  Mrs.  Isabella  Harrison,  the  widow 
of  Mr.  George  Evelyn  Harrison,  late  propri- 
etor of  Brandon,  was  warned  by  sagacious  ad- 
visers that  it  would  be  prudent  to  remove  her 
family,  with  such  valuables  as  were  portable, 
to  Richmond.  Reluctant  to  leave  home  and 
dependants,  she  delayed  until  danger  of  inva- 
sion was  imminent  before  she  took  a  house  in 
town  and  filled  it  with  furniture,  pictures  and 
other  effects  sent  up  the  river  from  the  planta- 
tion. There  were  left  behind  her  brother,  Dr. 
Ritchie, — a  son  of  the  famous  "  Nestor  of  the 
Virginia  Press,"  Thomas  Ritchie  of  The  En- 
quirer,— two  white  managers,  and  1 50  negroes, 
— field-hands  and  their  families, — the  house- 
servants  having  accompanied  the  ladies  to 
Richmond. 


Brandon — Lower  and  Upper         9 

At  one  o'clock,  one  January  morning  in 
[864,  Dr.  Ritchie  was  awakened  by  a  knock- 
ing at  the  door,  and  answering  from  a  win- 
dow was  told  that  the  visitors  were  Federal 
officers.  Hastily  arraying  himself  in  an  old 
pair  of  hunting-trousers,  the  first  he  could  lay 
his  hands  upon,  with  dressing-gown  and  slip- 
pers, he  admitted  the  unseasonable  arrivals. 
They  were  respectful,  but  peremptory  in  their 
assertion  that  he  must  go  with  them  immedi- 
ately to  the  gunboat  moored  at  the  wharf. 
That  he  was  a  non-combatant,  and  simply  act- 
ing here  as  the  custodian  of  his  widowed  sis- 
ter's property ;  that  he  was  far  from  well  and 
not  in  suitable  garb  to  meet  strangers,  availed 
nothing  to  men  acting  under  orders.  He  and 
the  two  managers  were  hurried  down  to  the 
vessel,  and  from  the  deck  saw  the  flames  of 
burning  "  quarters,"  barns,  hayricks,  out- 
houses, 2500  barrels  of  corn  and  30,000  lbs. 
of  bacon,  rolling  up  against  the  black  heav- 
ens. The  negroes  were  routed  from  their 
cabins,  the  women  wailing,  the  men  paralyzed 
with  terror — all  alike  persuaded  that  the  Day 
of  Judgment  had  come — and  forced  on  board 
the  transports.  In  the  raw  cold  of  the  winter 
morning  they  were   taken    down   to   Taylor's 


io        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

Farm,  near  Norfolk.  The  younger  men  were 
enlisted  in  the  army,  the  older  men  and  women 
were  set  to  work  on  the  farm.  Most  of  them 
returned  to  Brandon  at  the  close  of  the  war. 

Dr.  Ritchie  and  his  companions  were  con- 
fined in  a  cell  at  Fort  Monroe  with  several 
negroes,  until  the  news  of  his  arrest  reached 
General  Butler,  who  gave  him  pleasanter 
quarters  and  offered  him  many  civilities. 

"  I  ask  only  for  a  sheet  of  paper  and  an  en- 
velope, that  I  may  write  to  my  sister,"  was 
Dr.  Ritchie's  reply  to  these  overtures. 

A  Baltimore  paper  printed  next  day  a  sen- 
sational account  of  the  Attack  upon  Brandon, 
heading  it  A  Bloodless  Victory.  It  was  the 
intention  of  the  officer  in  charge  of  the  expe- 
dition, the  report  further  stated,  to  return  and 
complete  the  work  of  demolition. 

This  article  was  read  that  morning  by  Mrs. 
Stone,  Mrs.  Harrison's  sister,  in  Washington, 
whose  husband,  a  distinguished  physician,  was 
Mr.  Lincoln's  medical  adviser  and  friend. 
Newspaper  in  hand,  Dr.  Stone  hastened  to 
the  President,  and  laid  the  case  before  him. 
The  name  and  fame  of  Thomas  Ritchie,  the 
wheel-horse  of  the  Old  Democratic  Party, 
were    known    to     Mr.     Lincoln,    with    whom 


Brandon — Lower  and  Upper        1 1 

humanity  always  stood  ready  to  temper 
justice. 

"That,  at  least,  they  shall  not  do?"  he 
said,  on  reading  the  threat  of  a  return  to 
Brandon,  and  instantly  telegraphed  orders  to 
Fort  Monroe  to  that  effect. 

Mrs.  Harrison  and  her  sister,  Miss  Ritchie, 
had  been  deterred  by  the  unfavorable  aspect 
of  the  weather  from  coming  down  the  river 
on  the  very  night  of  the  attack,  as  they  had 
planned  to  do,  and  thus  escaped  the  worst 
terrors  of  the  scene.  Arriving  two  days  later, 
they  found  that  the  troops  had  been  with- 
drawn, pursuant  to  the  President's  command. 
They  had  made  the  most  of  their  brief  season 
of  occupation.  Not  a  habitable  building  was 
left  standing  except  the  manor-house,  and  that 
had  been  rifled  of  all  the  mistress  left  in  it. 
The  few  pictures  which  were  too  bulky  to 
be  removed  to  town,  had  been  cut  from  the 
frames  and  carried  off.  Some  family  portraits 
are  still  missing — the  sadly  significant  note, 
Taken  by  the  enemy  in  1864,  recording  their 
loss  in  the  catalogue  of  the  Brandon  Gallery. 
Every  window  pane  was  shattered.  Those 
inscribed  with  the  autographs  of  J.  K.  Pauld- 
ing,   John    Tyler,    Millard    Fillmore   and    hjs 


12        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

Cabinet  secretaries,  Edward  Everett,  etc., 
etc.,  were  not  spared.  The  wainscoting  was 
ripped  from  the  inner  walls ;  the  outer  shut- 
ters were  riddled  and  hacked  and,  in  aiming 
at  the  quaint,  nondescript  ornament  on  the 
roof,  the  marksmen  had  battered  bricks  and 
cement  into  holes  that  remain  until  this  day. 

Comment  is  superfluous  on  this,  the  darkest 
page  in  the  annals  of  a  house  that  should  be 
the  pride  of  intelligent  civilization. 

"  War  is  war,  "  says  our  own  brave  Sher- 
man, "  and  we  cannot  define  it.  War  is  cruel, 
and  we  cannot  refine  it."  Upon  those  whose 
political  rancor  and  greed  brought  on  the  frat- 
ricidal strife,  let  the  odium  rest  of  these  and 
other  calamities  which  a  united  people  is  anx- 
ious to  forget. 

With  a  sigh  of  grateful  relief  I  turn  to  Bran- 
don as  I  saw  it  on  a  mid-May  day  when  the 
story  of  the  invasion  was  thirty  years  old. 
Lawn  and  garden  separated  the  mansion  from 
the  river.  Trees,  lopped  and  shivered  by  bul- 
lets and  scorched  by  fire,  were  swathed  with 
ivy ;  honeysuckles  rioted  in  tropical  luxuri- 
ance over  bole  and  bough,  and  were  pruned 
daily  lest  they  should  strangle  rose-trees  that 
were  full  of  buds.     The  yellow  jasmine,  most 


Brandon — Lower  and  Upper        13 

odorous  of  its  tribe,  leaped  to  the  top  of  the 
tallest  trees  and  cast  abroad  streamers  laden 
with  bloom  ;  faint  purple  clusters  of  wistaria 
hung  from  wall  and  trellis  and  branch ;  a 
golden  chain  of  cowslips  bordered  the  walks  ; 
glowing  patches  of  tulips  nodded  saucy  heads 
in  the  river  breeze  that  drank  the  dew  from 
their  cups.  A  great  pecan-tree,  the  planting 
of  which,  almost  a  hundred  years  ago,  was  for- 
mally recorded  in  the  Plantation  Year-book, 
towered  on  one  side  of  the  lawn,  and  in  its 
shadow  bloomed  a  bed  of  royal  purple  iris,  the 
roots  of  which  were  brought  from  Washing- 
ton's birthplace. 

Every  square  has  its  story ;  alley  and  plot, 
tree  and  shrub,  are  beaded  with  hallowed  asso- 
ciations as  the  lush  grasses  were  strung  with 
dew-pearls  on  that  sweet-scented  May  morning. 

Standing  on  the  river-bank  facing  the  house, 
the  double-leaved  doors  of  which  were  open, 
front  and  back,  we  saw  it  framed  in  a  vista  of 
verdure,  and  looking  through  and  beyond  the 
central  hall  caught  glimpses  of  sward  that  was 
a  field  of  cloth-of-gold  with  buttercups  ;  masses 
of  spring  foliage,  tenderly  green,  mingled  with 
wide  white-tented  dogwood,  transplanted  into 
a    "  pleasaunce,"   which    is   cleft   by  the  same 


14        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

vista  running  on  unbroken  for  three  miles  until 
the  lines,  converging  with  distance,  are  lost  in 
the  forest.  There  are  seven  thousand  acres 
in  the  estate  as  at  present  bounded,  eighteen 
hundred  of  which  are  in  admirable  cultivation, 
under  the  skilful  management  of  Major  Mann 
Page,  Mrs.  Harrison's  near  relative,  who  has 
been  a  member  of  her  household  for  thirty 
years.  Except  for  the  dents  of  bullets  in  the 
stanch  walls,  the  exterior  tells  nothing  of  the 
fiery  blast  and  rain  that  nearly  wrought  ruin 
to  the  whole  edifice.  Out-buildings  and  en- 
closures have  been  renewed,  peace  and  prom- 
ise of  plenty  rejoice  on  every  side. 

The  house  has  a  frontage  of  210  feet,  the 
wings  being  joined  by  covered  corridors  to 
the  main  building,  projected  by  the  architec- 
tural President.  The  corridors  are  a  single 
story  in  height,  the  rest  of  the  structure  is 
two-storied.  Broad  porches,  back  and  front, 
give  entrance  to  the  hall,  which  is  large  and 
lightsome,  well  furnished  with  bookshelves, 
tables  and  chairs,  and  hung  with  pictures,  a 
favorite  lounging-place,  winter  and  summer, 
with  inmates  and  guests.  Like  all  the  old 
mansions  on  the  James,  Brandon  is  double- 
fronted.     The  carriage-drive  leads  up  to  what 


Brandon — Lower  and  Upper        15 

would  be  called  the  backdoor ;  the  other  main 
entrance  faces  the  river.  To  the  right,  as  we 
enter  the  hall  from  the  "  pleasaunce "  and 
drive,  is  the  dining-room.  Buffets,  filled  with 
old  family-plate,  handsome  and  curious,  stand 
on  either  side  ;  the  vases  on  the  mantel  were 
used  at  the  Lafayette  banquet  at  Rich- 
mond in  1824;  on  the  wall  are  valuable 
portraits. 

Conspicuous  among  these  last  is  one  of 
Daniel*  Parke,  who  in  the  campaign  in  Flan- 
ders, 1 704,  was  aide-de-camp  to  the  Duke  of 
Marlborough.  He  is  named  in  the  Duke's  des- 
patch  to  Queen  Anne  announcing  the  victory 
of  Blenheim,  as  "  the  bearer,  Col.  Parke,  who 
will  give  her  an  account  of  what  has  passed." 
After  receiving  gracious  audience  from  the 
Queen,  he  made  so  bold  as  to  ask  that  her 
portrait  might  be  given  to  him  instead  of  the 
customary  bonus  of  five  hundred  pounds.  It 
was  sent  to  him  set  in  diamonds.  He  was 
appointed  Governor-General  of  the  Leeward 
Islands  (W.  I.)  in  1706,  and  was  received  with 
marked  favor  by  the  inhabitants  on  his  arrival 
at  Antigua.  His  popularity  was,  however, 
short-lived.  In  1710,  a  mob,  excited  to  frenzy 
by  irregularities  in  his  administration,  and  his 


1 6        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

cruel,  arrogant  temper,  surrounded  the  Govern- 
ment House,  and  he  was  killed  in  the  tumult. 
His  daughter  was  the  first  wife  of  Colonel 
William  Evelyn  Byrd  of  Westover,  and  the  an- 
cestress of  a  long  line  of  prominent  Virginians, 
whose  employment  of  the  patronymic  "  Parke  " 
as  a  Christian  name,  indicates  their  descent. 

The  painting,  a  fine  one,  gives  us  a  three- 
quarter  length  likeness  of  a  man  in  superb 
court  costume,  standing,  hand  on  hip,  by  a 
table  on  which  are  heaped  several  rich  medals 
and  chains.  He  wears  the  Queen's  miniature, 
surrounded  with  brilliants  ;  the  figure  is  sol- 
dierly, the  face  is  haughty,  and  would  be  hand- 
some but  for  a  lurking,  sinister  devil  in  the 
dark  eyes  that  partially  exculpates  the  popu- 
lace in  his  violent  taking  off. 

The  door  of  the  drawing-room  is  opposite 
that  of  the  dining-parlor,  the  hall  lying  be- 
tween. Both  apartments  have  the  full  depth 
of  the  house,  and  are  peopled  to  the  thought- 
ful guests  with  visions  from  a  Past  beside 
which  our  busy  To-day  seems  tame  and  jejune 
enough. 

General  William  Henry  Harrison,  President, 
for  one  little  month,  of  these  United  States, 
spent  his  Sundays  at  Brandon  while  a  school 


17 


COLONEL  DANIEL  PARKE. 

FROM   A   PAINTING    BY   SIR   GODFREY  KNELLER. 


Brandon — Lower  and  Upper        19 

boy  in  the  neighborhood.  Fillmore  laughed 
with  his  Cabinet  here  over  the  memorial  of  his 
farmer-boyhood  set  up  that  day  in  the  harvest- 
field,  a  wheat-sheaf  bound  dexterously  by  the 
hands  of  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  nation, 
and  long  preserved  on  the  plantation. 

Another  incident  connected  with  Mr.  Fill- 
more's visit  to  Brandon  pleasingly  illustrates 
the  oneness  of  interest  that  existed  between 
employers  and  family  servants.  George,  the 
Brandon  cook,  was  a  fine  specimen  of  his 
class.  A  master  of  his  craft,  stately  in  manner 
and  speech,  he  suffered  no  undue  humility  to 
cloud  his  consciousness  of  his  abilities.  A 
family  festival  in  honor  of  a  clan  anniversary 
had  filled  the  old  house  with  guests  for  several 
days,  and  tested  the  abundant  larder  to  what 
seemed  to  be  its  utmost  possibilities.  On  the 
very  day  that  saw  the  departure  of  the  com- 
pany, a  communication  was  received  by  Mrs. 
Harrison  informing  her  that  the  Presidential 
party  might  be  expected  on  the  morrow.  She 
summoned  George  and  imparted  the  startling 
news. 

He  met  it  like  an  ebony  Gibraltar, 
"  Very  well,   madam,  your  orders  shall  be 
obeyed." 


20        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

"  But,  George  !  can  we  be  ready  for  them  ? 
There  will  be  about  thirty  persons,  including 
the  President  of  the  United  States  and  his 
Cabinet." 

Gibraltar  relaxed  measurably.  The  lady's 
apprehensions  appealed  to  his  chivalric  heart. 
It  was  his  duty  to  allay  them. 

"  Very  true,  madam.  But  we  must  bear  in 
mind  that  we  are  greatly  blessed  in  our  cook." 

The  dignity,  conceit,  and  periphrastic  mod- 
esty of  the  rejoinder  put  it  upon  the  family 
records  at  once.  It  is  hardly  worth  our  while 
to  add  that  he  nobly  sustained  the  sublime 
vaunt.  Aladdin's  banquet  was  not  more  deftly 
produced,  and  could  not  have  given  greater 
satisfaction  to  the  partakers  thereof. 

The  present  chef  at  Brandon  is  a  grandson 
of  this  Napoleon. 

Hither,  William  Foushee  Ritchie,  his  father's 
successor  in  the  proprietorship  and  conduct  of 
The  Enquirer,  brought  the  beautiful  woman 
known  to  the  public  as  Anna  Cora  Mowatt, 
who  left  the  profession  in  which  she  had  won 
laurels  in  two  hemispheres,  for  the  love  of  this 
honorable  gentleman  and  a  happy  life  in  their 
Richmond  cottage.  Brandon  was  a  loved  re- 
sort with  his  wife.     A  portrait,  which,  although 


Brandon — Lower  and  Upper        23 

a  tolerable  likeness,  conveys  to  one  who  never 
saw  her  an  inadequate  idea  of  her  pure,  ele- 
vated loveliness,  is  here  ;  an  exquisite  statuette 
of  Resignation,  that  once  adorned  her  cottage 
parlor,  is  on  the  mantel. 

She  has  passed  out  of  sight,  and  her  noble 
husband,  and  the  gallant  procession  of  such  as 
the  world  delighted  to  honor  that  talked,  and 
thought,  and  lived  in  this  stately  chamber. 
From  tarnished  frames  impassive  faces  looked 
down  on  us  as  once  on  them,  changing  not  for 
their  mirth  or  for  our  sighing.  The  silver 
mirror  is  brought  out  and  turned  for  us,  that 
once  flashed  a  sheet  of  light  for  this  vanished 
company  upon  portrait  after  portrait. 

Upon  the  sweet,  pensive  face  of  Elizabeth 
Claypole,  registered  in  the  catalogue  as  "  Lady 
Betty  Cromwell," — only  daughter  of  the  Pro- 
tector. Her  sitting  attitude  is  languidly  grace- 
ful ;  her  head  is  supported  by  a  slim  hand,  her 
arm  on  a  table.  Her  gown  is  of  a  dim  blue, 
with  flowing  sleeves,  and  modestly  decollete. 

Upon  Jeanie  Deans's  Duke  of  Argyle,  whose 
mailed  corslet,  partially  visible  under  his  coat, 
hints  of  the  troublous  times  in  which  he  lived. 

Upon  the  courtly  form  and  regular  features 
of  the  second  Colonel  Byrd  of  Westover,  hang- 


24        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

ing  next  to  his  daughter,  "  The  Fair  Evelyn," 
whose  dramatic  story  has  place  in  the  chronicles 
of  Westover. 

Upon  the  owl-like  eyes,  long  locks  and  be- 
nign expression  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  benig- 
nity so  premeditate  and  measured  that  the 
irreverent  beholder  is  reminded  of  the  patri- 
archal Casby  of  Little  Dorrit.  The  portrait 
was  taken  while  he  was  envoy  to  France  and 
presented  by  him  to  the  then  master  of  Brandon. 

Upon  Charles  Montague,  Earl  of  Halifax, 
date  of  1 66 1,  and  Sir  Robert  Southwell  of  the 
same  year,  boon-companions  of  Colonel  Byrd 
during  his  .sojourn  in  England. 

Upon  Benjamin  West's  portrait  of  Colonel 
Alston  of  South  Carolina. 

Upon  the  dark  intellectual  face  of  Benjamin 
Harrison,  who  married  Miss  Evelyn  Byrd  of 
Westover,  niece  of  the  Fair  Evelyn  ;  and  a 
half-score  of  other  pictured  notabilia,  at  the 
hearing  of  whose  names  we  look  suddenly  and 
keenly  at  their  presentments. 

Mister  Walthoe,  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Burgesses,  was  painted  in  his  broad-brimmed 
hat. 

"  Set  me  among  your  dukes  and  earls  with 
my  hat  on   my  head,   to  signify  that   I   am  a 


Brandon — Lower  and  Upper        25 

true  Republican  who  will  uncover  to  none  of 
them,  and  I  will  give  you  the  finest  diamond 
ring  to  be  bought  in  America,"  he  proposed 
to  Colonel  Byrd. 

"  Agreed  !  "  said  the  witty  landholder,  "  and 
I  will  hang  it  over  the  door  to  show  that  you 
are  taking  leave  of  them." 

The  stubborn,  rubicund  face,  surmounted  by 
the  Republican  chapeau,  hangs  yet  above  a 
door  in  the  dining-room.  The  central  diamond 
of  the  cluster  that  paid  for  the  privilege  of  the 
protest,  was  worn  until  her  death  by  Miss 
Harrison,  only  daughter  of  the  venerated 
chatelaine  who  shines  with  chastened  lustre, 
the  very  pearl  of  gracious  womanhood,  in  the 
antique  setting  of  Brandon. 

The  Westover  MS.  is  a  large  folio  bound 
in  parchment,  copied  in  a  clear,  clerkly  hand 
from  the  notes  of  Colonel  Byrd  of  Westover, 
the  chiefest  of  the  three  who  bore  the  name 
and  title.  The  first  part  is  entitled  :  History 
of  the  Dividing  Line,  and  Other  Tracts.  From 
the  papers  of  William  Byrd  of  Westover  in 
Virginia,  Esq. 

It  is  the  report  of  an  expedition  of  survey- 
ors and  gentlemen  who  ran  the  Dividing  Line 
between  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  in  1728- 


26        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

29,  and  is  full  of  delightful  reading,  not  only 
because  of  the  pictures  it  gives  of  men  and 
times  in  the  author's  day,  but  in  the  racy 
humor  of  the  narrative.  The  second  part  has 
the  caption  :  A  Journey  to  the  Land  of  Eden, 
and  other  Tracts,  Anno  1733.  A  third  paper, 
A  Progress  to  the  Mines,  In  the  Year  1732,  is 
perhaps  the  most  entertaining  of  all. 

It  begins,  Sept.  18,  1732,  after  this  wise  : 

"  For  the  Pleasure  of  the  good  Company  of 
Mrs.  Byrd,  and  her  little  Governor  my  Son,  I 
went  about  half-way  to  the  Falls  in  the  Chariot. 
There  we  halted,  not  far  from  a  purling 
Stream,  and  upon  the  Stump  of  a  propagate 
Oak,  picket  the  Bones  of  a  piece  of  Roast 
Beef.  By  the  Spirit  which  that  gave  me,  I 
was  the  better  able  to  part  with  the  dear  Com- 
panions of  my  Travels,  and  to  perform  the  rest 
of  my  Journey  on  Horseback  by  myself.  I 
reached  Shaccoa's  before  2  o'clock  and  crost 
the  River  to  the  Mills.  I  had  the  Grief  to  find 
them  both  stand  as  still  for  the  want  of  Water, 
as  a  dead  Woman's  Tongue  for  want  of 
Breath." 

These  manuscripts  were  presented  by  the 
author's   daughter-in-law    to    "  George   Evelyn 


Brandon — Lower  and  Upper        27 

Harrison,  the  son  of  her  daughter,  Evelyn  Byrd, 
zvlio  had  married  Mr.  Benjamin  Harrison  of 
Brandon!'  They  were  in  the  hands  of  Mr. 
Thomas  Wynne,  a  Richmond  printer,  at  the 
time  of  the  evacuation  of  that  city.  For  some 
time  after  the  fire  which  burned  up  the  print- 
ing offices,  Mrs.  Harrison  feared  they  had 
been  destroyed.  They  were  found  in  Mr. 
Wynne's  safe,  unharmed,  when  it  was  cool 
enough  to  be  opened. 

Upper  Brandon,  originally  included  in  the 
Brandon  tract,  now  adjoins  that  which  is  called 
in  contradistinction,  "  Lower  Brandon,"  the 
road  thither  winding  through  teeming  fields 
and  belts  of  forest-lands,  and  often  along  the 
river-edge.  The  house,  a  fine  brick  building, 
was  erected  about  sixty  years  ago  by  William 
Byrd  Harrison,  and  after  his  death  was  bought 
by  Mr.  George  L.  Byrd  of  New  York  city. 
It  was  cruelly  damaged  by  Federal  troops 
during  the  Civil  WTar,  and  has  never  been  re- 
stored to  its  former  condition.  Major  Charles 
Shirley  Harrison,  who  has  the  general  manage- 
ment of  the  estate,  occupies  bachelors'  quarters 
in  the  central  building.  The  rest  of  the 
spacious  mansion    echoes   mournfully    to    the 


28        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

footsteps  of  the  chance  guest ;  the  bits  of 
antique  furniture  left  here  and  therein  the  de- 
serted rooms  make  the  eyes  of  the  would-be 
collector  glisten  with  greed  and  regret.  The 
situation  is  commanding  ;  the  grounds  still  re- 
tain traces  of  former  beauty.  A  covered  sub- 
terranean passage  connects  the  kitchen  in  the 
right  wing  with  the  empty  wine-cellar  and 
the  dining-room  above.  A  secret  staircase 
formerly  wound  from  the  vaulted  passage  to 
the  upper  chambers,  but  it  was  torn  out  by  the 
soldiers,  leaving  a  gaping  well.  The  other 
wing  was  in  the  old  times  fitted  up  as  bache- 
lors' chambers.  In  the  thought  of  the  high- 
bred, bearded  faces  that  once  looked  from  the 
windows,  the  laughter  and  jest  thrown  back 
by  the  walls  now  broken,  discolored,  and  dumb, 
the  stillness  and  desolation  of  the  closed  rooms 
bring  dreariness  and  heartache  to  the  stranger- 
visitor  ;  wring  from  the  soul  of  the  native- 
born  Virginian  a  lament  as  bitter  as  the  pro- 
phet's moan  that  the  hurt  of  the  daughter  of 
his  people  was  not  healed. 

Beyond  the  ruined  gardens  lie  woods  so  pic- 
turesque in  glade  and  greenery,  that  one 
blesses  anew  the  beneficent  ministration  of 
Nature  and  the  loving   haste  with  which,   in 


Brandon— Lower  and  Upper        31 

this  climate,  she  repairs  the  waste  made  in 
these  and  other  "  pleasant  places." 

In  the  dining-room  hang  several  good  pic- 
tures,— one  a  portrait  of  Colonel  Byrd,  another, 
by  Vandyke,  of  Pope's  Martha  Blount.  She 
led  the  crook-backed  poet  a  dance  with  her 
tempers  and  caprices,  but  she  does  not  look  the 
termagant,  as  she  queens  it  in  this  dismantled 
room,  a  spaniel  at  her  feet,  a  roll  of  music  in 
her  hand,  a  harpsichord  in  the  background. 

Less  out  of  place  here  than  the  imperious 
beauty  is  a  lacquered  Chinese  cabinet,  black- 
and-gilt,  that  once  belonged  to  Anne  Boleyn. 
Syphers  would  barter  a  section  of  his  immor- 
tal soul  for  it. 

It  was  while  we  waited  in  the  porch  for  our 
carriage,  hearkening  to  the  "  sweet  jargoning" 
of  the  bird-vespers,  that  the  pretty  anecdote 
was  told  of  Mrs.  William  Harrison's  rejoinder 
to  an  English  guest  who  asked  to  see  the 
aviary  from  which  came  the  warbling  that 
poured  into  his  windows  from  dawn  to  sunrise. 
Leading  him  to  the  backdoor,  she  opened  it, 
and  pointed  to  the  grove  beyond. 

"  It  is  there  !"  she  answered,  merrily. 

Parting  at  the  gate  with  the  courtly  cavalier 
who  had  guided  us  through  the  lovely  bit  of 


32        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

woodland  outlying  the  grounds,  we  drove  in 
the  sunset  calm,  back  to  Lower  Brandon,  ar- 
riving just  in  season  to  dress  for  dinner. 

Of  the  tranquil  beauty  of  the  domestic  life 
within  the  ancient  walls,  I  may  not  speak  here. 
But  the  story  of  house  and  estate  belongs  to  a 
country  that  should  cherish  jealously  the  record 
of  the  few  families  and  residences  which  have 
withstood  the  wash  of  Time  and  Change,  agen- 
cies that  relegate  the  fair  fashion  of  growing 
old  gracefully  to  a  place  among  the  lost  arts. 


II 

WESTOVER 

THE  Plantation  of  Westover  finds  place  in 
the  annals  of  Colonial  History  as  early 
as  1622.  The  original  grant  was  made  to  Sir 
John  Paulet.  Theodorick  Bland  was  the  next 
owner.  An  Englishman  by  birth,  he  was  a 
Spanish  merchant  before  he  emigrated  to  Vir- 
ginia in  1654.  He  was  one  of  the  King's  Coun- 
cil in  Virginia,  established  himself  at  Westover, 
gave  ten  acres  of  land,  a  court-house  and  a 
prison  to  Charles  City  County,  and  built  a 
church  for  the  parish  which  occupied  a  portion 
of  the  graveyard  on  his  plantation.  He  was 
buried  in  the  chancel.  A  sunken  horizontal 
slab,  bearing  his  name,  marks  the  site  of  the 
sacred  edifice. 

The  estate  came  into  prominence  under  the 
regime  of  the  Byrds.      Hening,  in  his  Statutes 
3  33 


34        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 


at  Large,  spells  the  name,  Bird.  Family  tra- 
dition claims  descent  for  them  from  a  Le  Brid, 
who  entered  England  in 
the  train  of  William  the 
Conqueror,  and  it  trans- 
mits an  ancient  ballad,  be- 
ginning, 

"  My  father  from  the  Norman 
shore, 
byrd  coat-of-arms.  With  Royal  William  came." 


The  first  American  Byrd — William — was 
born  in  London  in  1653,  and  settled  in  Vir- 
ginia as  merchant  and  planter  in  1674.  He 
bought  Westover  from  the  Blands,  and  died 
there  in  1  704.  He  held  the  office  of  Receiver- 
General  of  the  Royal  Revenues  at  the  time  of 
his  death.  His  son,  William  Evelyn  Byrd, 
succeeded  to  the  proprietorship  when  thirty 
years  of  age,  having  been  born  March  28, 
1674.  Two  years  later  he  married  a  daughter 
of  Daniel  Parke  (see  Lower  Brandon),  She 
died  in  England  of  smallpox  in  1716,  leaving 
two  daughters,  Evelyn,  who  never  married,  and 
Wilhelmina,  who  became  the  wife  of  Mr,  Wil- 
liam Chamberlayne,  of  Virginia. 


Westover  37 

Colonel  Byrd's  second  wife  was  Maria  Taylor, 
an  English  heiress,  and  with  her  he  returned 
to  his  native  land  after  a  sojourn  of  some  years 
abroad.  His  father  had  built  a  house  at  West- 
over  in  1690.  The  son  proceeded  now  to  build 
a  greater,  choosing  the  finest  natural  location 
on  James  River.  The  dwelling  of  English 
brick  consisted  of  one  large  central  house,  con- 
nected by  corridors  with  smaller  wings,  and 
was  underrun  by  cellars  that  are  models  of 
solidity  and  spaciousness.  The  sloping  lawn 
was  defended  against  the  wash  of  the  current 
by  a  river-wall  of  massive  masonry.  At  regu- 
lar intervals  buttresses,  capped  with  stone,  sup- 
ported statues  of  life  size.  Gardens,  fences, 
out-houses,  and  conservatories  were  evidences 
of  the  owner's  taste  and  means.  His  estate  is 
said  to  have  been  "  a  Principality,"  and  was 
augmented  by  his  second  wife's  large  fortune, 
which  included  valuable  landed  property  in  the 
neighborhood  of  London.  Within  his  palatial 
abode  were  collected  the  treasures  brought 
from  England  and  the  Continent.  Among  the 
pictures  were  the  portraits  now  preserved  at 
Lower  and  at  Upper  Brandon.  They  were 
removed  to  these  houses  when  Westover  passed 
out  of  the  Byrd  family. 


3$         Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

A  partial  list,  (taken  from  a  Westover  MS.) 
is  herewith  given  : 

"  Portrait  of  Sir  Wilfred  Lawson,  by  Sir  Godfrey 
Kneller.  One  of  a  progenitor  of  the  Byrd  family  by 
Vandyke.  Duke  of  Argyle  (Jeanie  Deans's  friend). 
Lord  Orrery  and  Sir  Charles  Wager,  an  English  Ad- 
miral ;  Miss  Bloun^  celebrated  by  Pope.  Mary,  Duch- 
ess of  Montague,  daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Marlboro'  and 
wife  of  John,  fourth  Duke  of  Montague.  Governor 
Daniel  Parke.  Mrs.  Lucy  Parke  Byrd  and  her  daugh- 
ter Evelyn.  Col.  Byrd  and  his  second  wife,  Miss  Taylor. 
The  daughters  of  the  second  Col.  Byrd." 

William  Evelyn,  second  of  the  "  Byrd  of 
Westover"  name  and  title,  was  the  most  emi- 
nent of  the  line. 

One  historian  says  of  him  : 

"A  vast  fortune  enabled  him  to  live  in  a  style  of 
hospitable  splendor  before  unknown  in  Virginia.  His 
extensive  learning  was  improved  by  a  keen  observation, 
and  refined  by  an  acquaintance  and  correspondence 
with  the  wits  and  noblemen  of  his  day  in  England. 
His  writings  are  amongst  the  most  valuable  that  have 
descended  from  his  era." 

Another : 

"  He  was  one  of  the  brightest  stars  in  the  social  skies 
of  Colonial  Virginia.  All  desirable  traits  seemed  to  com- 
bine in  him  ;  personal  beauty,  elegant  manners,  literary 
culture  and  the  greatest  gayety  of  disposition.     Never 


COLONEL  WILLIAM   EVELYN  BYRD  OF  WESTOVER, 

FROM    A    PAINTING    BY    SIR    GODFREY    KNELLER. 


Westover  41 

was  there  a  livelier  companion,  and  his  wit  and  humor 
seemed  to  flow  in  an  unfailing  stream.  It  is  a  species 
of  jovial  grand  seigneur  and  easy  master  of  all  the  graces 
we  see  in  the  person  of  this  author-planter  on  the  banks 
of  James  River." 

Of  the  Westover  MSS.  described  in  our 
"  Brandon  "  paper,  the  same  writer  says  : 

"  We  may  fancy  the  worthy  planter  in  ruffles  and  pow- 
der, leaning  back  in  his  arm-chair  at  Westover,  and  dictat- 
ing, with  a  smile  on  his  lips,  the  gay  pages  to  his  secretary. 
The  smile  may  be  seen  to-day  on  the  face  of  his  portrait  : 
a  face  of  remarkable  personal  beauty,  framed  in  the 
curls  of  a  flowing  peruke  of  the  time  of  Queen  Anne.  .  . 

"  His  path  through  life  was  a  path  of  roses.  He  had 
wealth,  culture,  the  best  private  library  in  America,  social 
consideration,  and  hosts  of  friends,  and  when  he  went 
to  sleep  under  his  monument  in  the  garden  at  Westover, 
he  left  behind  him  not  only  the  reputation  of  a  good 
citizen,  but  that  of  the  great  Virginia  wit  and  author  of 
the  century." 

The  testimony  of  the  monument  is  prolix 
and  exhaustive,  forestalling,  one  might  suppose, 
the  necessity  of  any  other  post-mortem  me- 
morial. 

"  Here  lieth  the  honorable  William  Byrd,  Esq.  Being 
born  to  one  of  the  amplest  fortunes  in  this  country,  he 
was  sent  early  to  England  for  his  education,  where,  under 
the  care  of  Sir  Robert  Southwell,  and  ever  favored  with  his 


42         Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

particular  instructions,  he  made  a  happy  proficiency  in 
polite  and  various  learning.  By  the  means  of  the  same 
noble  friend,  he  was  introduced  to  the  acquaintance  of 
many  of  the  first  persons  of  that  age  for  knowledge,  wit, 
virtue,  birth,  or  high  station,  and  particularly  contracted  a 
most  intimate  and  bosom  friendship  with  the  learned  and 
illustrious  Charles  Boyle,  Earl  of  Orrery.-  He  was  called 
to  the  bar  in  the  Middle  Temple  :  studied  for  some  time 
in  the  Low  Countries  ;  visited  the  Court  of  France,  and 
was  chosen  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society.  Thus  emi- 
nently fitted  for  the  service  and  ornament  of  his  country, 
he  was  made  receiver-general  of  his  majesty's  revenues 
here  ;  was  thrice  appointed  public  agent  to  the  court 
and  ministry  of  England  ;  and  being  thirty-seven  years 
a  member,  at  last  became  president  of  the  council  of 
this  colony.  To  all  this  were  added  a  great  elegance  of 
taste  and  life,  the  well-bred  gentleman  and  polite  com- 
panion, the  splendid  economist,  and  prudent  father  of  a 
family  ;  withal,  the  constant  enemy  of  all  exorbitant 
power,  and  hearty  friend  to  the  liberties  of  his  country. 
Nat.  Mar.  28,  1674.  Mort.  Aug.  26,  1744.     An  aetat.  70." 

A  catalogue  of  his  books  is  in  the  Franklin 
Library,  Philadelphia. 

He  also  advertised  in  The  Virginia  Gazette 
of  April  1737, 

"  that  on  the  North  Side  of  James  River,  near  the  upper- 
most Landing  and  a  little  below  the  Falls,  is  lately  laid 
off  by  Major  Mayo,  a  town  called  Richmond,  with 
Streets  sixty  feet  wide,  in  a  Pleasant  and  Healthy  Situa- 


Westover  43 

tion    and  well   supplied   with  Springs  of   Good  Water 
It  lieth  near  the  Public  Warehouse  at  Shoccoe's,"  etc. 

In  his  journal  of  1733,  he  says  : 

"  We  laid  the  Foundation  of  Two  large  Cities,  one  at 
Shoccoe's  to  be  called  Richmond,  and  the  Other  at  the 
Point  of  Appomattox,  to  be  called  Petersburg." 

Truly  the  good  this  man  did  was  not  "  in- 
terred with  his  bones." 

And  yet — and  yet — ! 

The  portrait  of  his  daughter,  known  in  family 
tradition  as  "  The  Fair  Evelyn  "  (pronounced  as 
if  spelt  "  iiVvelyn  "),  hangs  next  to  that  of  her 
superb  parent.  The  painter  represents  Evelyn 
Byrd  as  a  beautiful  young  woman,  with  ex- 
quisite complexion  and  hands,  the  latter  busied 
in  binding  wild  flowers  about  a  shepherdess-hat. 
The  fashion  of  her  satin  gown  is  simple,  and 
becoming  to  a  slender  figure  ;  a  rose  is  set 
among  the  dark  curls  on  the  left  temple  ;  a 
scarlet  bird  is  perched  in  the  shrubbery  at  her 
right.  The  features  are  regular  ;  the  forehead 
broad,  the  hair  arching  prettily  above  it ;  the 
nose  is  straight ;  the  lips  are  rosy,  ripe,  and 
lightly  closed.  The  round  of  cheek  and  chin  is 
exquisite.     The  great   brown  eyes   are  sweet 


44        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

and  serious.  It  is  a  lovely  face — gentle,  amia- 
ble and  winning,  but  not  strong — except  in 
capacity  for  suffering. 

Her  father  took  his  children  abroad  to  be 
educated,  accompanying  them  on  the  voyage 
and  paying  them  several  visits  during  their 
pupilage.  In  due  time,  Evelyn  was  presented 
at  Court.  One  of  the  Brandon  relics  is  the 
fan  used  by  her  on  that  momentous  occasion. 
The  sticks  are  of  carved  ivory,  creamy  with 
age.  On  kid,  once  white,  now  yellow,  is 
painted  a  pastoral  scene — shepherdess  and 
swain,  pet  spaniel,  white  sheep,  green  bank, 
and  nodding  cowslips  under  a  rose-pink  sky. 
They  delighted  in  these  violent  contrasts  with 
the  gilded  artificiality  of  court-life  in  Queen 
Anne's  day.  We  hold  the  fragile  toy  with 
reverent  fingers ;  can  almost  discern  faint, 
lingering  thrills  along  the  delicately  wrought 
ivory  of  the  joyous  tumult  of  pulses  beating 
high  with  love  and  ambition. 

One  of  the  many  traditions  that  lead  the 
imagination  on  easily  to  the  reconstruction  of 
the  romantic  biography  of  William  the  Great 
of  Westover,  is  that,  when  he  presented  his 
wife,  Lucy  Parke,  at  the  court  of  his  Han- 
overian Majesty  George  I.,  her  charms  so  far 


45 


THE  FAIR  EVELYN." 

FROM   A   PAINTING   BY   SIR   GODFREY   KNELLER. 


Westover  47 

melted  the  Dutch  phlegm  of  the  monarch  that 
he  asked  the  proud  husband  if  "  there  were 
many  other  as  beautiful  birds  in  the  forests  of 
America  ?  " 

Another  version  of  the  anecdote  puts  the 
speech  into  the  mouth  of  George  II.,  and 
makes  the  occasion  that  of  the  Fair  Evelyn's 
presentation.  All  family  annalists  agree  in  say- 
ing that  the  daughter's  London  sojourn  in  the 
year  starred  by  her  appearance  at  Court,  was 
also  made  memorable  by  her  meeting  with 
Charles  Mordaunt,  the  grandson  of  Lord 
Peterborough.  The  young  man  fell  in  love 
with  her,  and  was  loved  in  return  as  absolutely 
and  passionately  as  if  the  fan-pastoral  were  a 
sketch  from  nature,  and  the  pair  Chloe  and 
Strephon. 

Lord  Peterborough,  the  grandfather,  was  a 
shining  figure  in  the  diplomatic,  military,  and 
social  world  of  his  day,  which  was  a  long  one. 
He  outlived  his  son  and  was  succeeded  in  his 
title  and  estates  by  his  grandson  in  1735. 
Those  of  William  Evelyn  Byrd's  biographers 
who  have  discredited  the  love  story  on  the 
ground  of  the  disparity  of  age  between  the 
friend  of  Swift,  Pope,  Arbuthnot,  and  Gay,  and 
the  lovely  American  debutante,  have  been  led 


48        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

into  the  doubt  by  overlooking  the  genealogical 
facts  I  have  given. 

The  hapless  pair  might  have  known  better 
if  lovers  ever  know  anything  better,  than  to  fol- 
low blindly  whither  love  leads.  Whatever  the 
cynical  Earl  of  Peterborough  thought  of  the 
pretty  entanglement,  the  potentate  of  West- 
over  had  reasons  weighty,  if  not  many,  for 
taking  part  in  the  drama.  The  Peterboroughs 
were  leading  Roman  Catholics.  The  "  jovial 
grand  seigneur  and  easy  master  of  all  the 
graces  "  was  the  stanchest  of  Protestant  Church- 
men. The  polished  courtier,  smiling  at  us 
from  the  drawing-room  wall  of  Brandon  wore 
quite  another  aspect  when  he  enacted  Cymbe- 
line  to  the  plighted  twain,  and, 

"  Like  the  tyrannous  breathing  of  the  North, 
Shook  all  their  buds  from  blowing." 

The  Fair  Evelyn  was  brought  back  to  West- 
over,  with  her  secret  buried  so  deep  in  her 
heart  that  it  ate  it  out.  Ennui  may  have  had 
something  to  do"  with  the  low,  nervous  state 
into  which  she  fell.  Unconsciously,  she  may 
have  pined  for  London  gayeties  in  the  un- 
eventful routine  of  colonial  plantation-life. 
The  story  asserts  that  the  brown,  deep  eyes 


Westover  49 

grew  wistful  with  thoughts  of  the  lover  they 
were  never  more  to  see  ;  her  soul  sick  unto 
death  with  longing  to  be  with  him. 

"  Refusing  all  offers  from  other  gentlemen, 
she  died  of  a  broken  heart,"  is  the  simple 
record. 

We  learn,  furthermore,  that  the  author- 
planter  bore  himself  remorselessly  while  the 
cruel  decline  went  on.  If  he  did  not — to 
quote  again  from  the  play  that  must  be  among 
his  catalogued  books — bid  her, 

"  Languish 
A  drop  of  blood  a  day,  and,  being  aged, 
Die  of  this  folly,"     .     .     . 

he  stuck  fast  by  his  purpose  not  to  let  her 
wed  the  Popish  nobleman.  He  gave  no  other 
reason  for  his  tyranny  than  this  to  the  public, 
whatever  his  daughter  and  the  young  peer  who, 
some  say,  followed  her  to  America,  may  have 
known  of  other  and  yet  weightier  objections 
to  the  alliance.  There  are  rumors  that  can 
neither  be  verified,  nor  denied,  at  this  distance 
from  the  tragedy  in  real  life,  of  early  feuds 
between  the  Mordaunts  and  the  haughty 
First  Gentleman  of  Virginia,  whose  stout  ad- 
herence to  principle  or  prejudice  cost  his 
favorite  child  her  life. 


5o        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

In  this  connection  occurs  another  family 
anecdote.  It  was  the  habit  of  the  Berkeley 
Harrisons  and  the  Westover  Byrds  often  to 
take  tea  together  in  the  summer  weather  in  a 
grove  on  the  dividing-line  of  the  two  planta- 
tions. Butlers  and  footmen  carried  table 
equipage  and  provisions  to  the  trysting-place, 
set  them  in  order,  and  waited  on  the  party. 
One  afternoon,  some  weeks  before  Evelyn's 
death,  as  she  and  her  dearest  friend  and  con- 
fidante, sweet  Anne  Harrison,  the  wife  of  the 
then  owner  of  Berkeley,  were  slowly  climb- 
ing the  slight  ascent  to  the  rendezvous,  the 
girl  promised  to  meet  her  companion  some- 
times on  the  way,  when  she  had  passed  out  of 
others'  sight.  Accordingly  on  a  certain  lovely 
evening  in  the  next  spring,  as  Mrs.  Harrison 
walked  lonely  and  sadly  down  the  hill,  she  saw 
her  lost  friend,  dressed  in  white  and  dazzling 
in  ethereal  loveliness,  standing  beside  her 
own  tombstone.  She  fluttered  forward  a  few 
steps,  kissed  her  hand  to  the  beholder,  smiling 
joyously  and  tenderly,  and  vanished. 

The  inscription  on  this  same  tombstone  is 
assuredly  not  the  composition  of  the  author 
of  the  Westover  MSS.  I  give  it,  verbatim  et 
literatim,  et  punctuatim  : 


Westover 


5i 


"  Here,  in  the  sleep  of  Peace, 
Reposes  the  Body  : 
of  Mrs.  Evelyn  Byrd  : 
Daughter, 
of  the  Honorable  Byrd,  Esq: 
The  various  &  excellent 
Endowments 
of  Nature  :   Improved  and 

perfected, 
By  an  accomplished  Educa- 
tion : 
Formed  her, 
For  the    Happyness  of   her 
Friends 
For  an  ornament  of  her 
Country. 
Alas,  Reader  ! 
We  can  detain  nothing 
however  Valued 
From  unrelenting  Death  : 
Beauty,  Fortune  or  exalted 
Honour. 
See  here,  a  Proof. 
And  be  reminded  by  this 
awful  Tomb  : 
That  every  worldly  Comfort 

fleets  away  : 

Excepting  only  what  arises, 

From  imitating  the  Virtues 

of  our  Friends  ; 

And  the  contemplation  of 

their  Happyness. 

To  which 

God  was  pleased  to  call  this 

Lady 
On  the  13th  Day  of  Novem- 
ber 1737 — 
In  the  29th  Year  of  Her 
Age." 


COLONEL  BYRD'S  TOMB   IN  THE  GARDEN  AT 
WESTOVER. 


52        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

On  the  right  of  Evelyn  Byrd's  tomb  is  one 
of  like  size  and  shape  which  guards  the  remains 
of  her  grandmother.  An  oddly  arranged  in- 
scription, running  sometimes  quite  around  the 
flat  top,  sometimes  across  it,  records  that  she 
was  "Mary  Byrd,  Late  Wife  of  William 
Byrd,  Esq!'  (They  never  left  the  "  Esq."  off, 
however  cramped  for  room.)  "Daughter  of 
Wareham  Horsemander,  Esq.,  who  dyed  the 
gth  Day  of  November  1699  In  the  47th  Year  of 
her  Age." 

Her  husband  lies  beside  her,  a  Latin  epitaph 
registering  the  provincial  offices  held  from  the 
Crown,  and  his  demise — "  4th  Die  Decembris 
1 J 04  post  quam  vicisset  §2  Annos." 

His  more  distinguished  son  was  buried  under 
the  more  ambitious  monument  in  the  middle 
of  the  garden. 

The  Westover  Church  was  removed  from 
the  burying-ground  to  a  portion  of  the  estate 
called  Evelynton,  about  two  miles  away  as  the 
crow  flies.  There  is  an  ugly  story  of  an  in- 
cumbent, Rev.  John  Dunbar,  who  married  a 
daughter  of  the  third  Col.  Byrd.  He  "  openly 
renounced  the  ministry,  and  with  it  the  Chris- 
tian faith,  and  became  a  notorious  gambler." 
On  the  occasion  of  some  misunderstanding  be- 


Westover  53 

tween  Benjamin  Harrison  of  Brandon  and  Ben- 
jamin Harrison  of  Berkeley,  the  whilome  rector 
offered  to  bear  a  challenge  from  the  latter, 
and  himself  fought  a  duel  resulting  from  a 
race-course  quarrel,  in  sight  of  Old  Westover 
Church  where  he  had  formerly  officiated. 

The  third  and  last  Col.  William  Byrd  was 
born  in  1728,  succeeded  to  title  and  estate  at 
his  father's  death  in  1  744,  and  served  as  Colonel 
in  the  French  and  Indian  War.  On  August 
3,  1758,  the  Virginia  troops  at  Fort  Cumber- 
land were  two  thousand  in  number,  under  the 
command  of  Col.  George  Washington  and  Col. 
William  Byrd  of  Westover,  and  the  regiment 
of  Col.  Byrd  was  859  strong. 

His  first  wife  was  Elizabeth  Hill  Carter,  of 
whom  we  shall  hear  more  in  the  paper  on  Shir- 
ley. His  second  was  Miss  Mary  Willing,  of 
Philadelphia,  who  bore  him  eight  children. 
Three  of  them  married  into  the  Harrison 
family  ;  one  married  a  Page  of  Pagebrook  ; 
one  a  Nelson ;  a  sixth  a  Meade, — all  noted 
Virginia  names. 

William  the  Third  of  Westover,  Virginia, 
Esq.,  "  involved  himself  in  debt  while  under 
age  and  abroad.  He  kept  company  with  the 
nobility  and  gamed." 


54         Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

He  laments  in  his  will  that  "  the  estate  is 
still  greatly  encumbered  with  debts  which  em- 
bitter every  moment  of  my  life."  But  several 
incidents  that  have  come  down  to  us  give  us 
pleasing  views  of  his  character.  One  is  his 
bravery  in  rescuing  his  wife's  brothers  from 
the  third-story  chamber  during  a  fire  that  par- 
tially destroyed  Westover  in  1 749.  No  one 
else  dared  rush  up  the  blazing  staircase.  Had 
the  young  men  perished  then  and  there,  the 
daily  embitterment  of  debt  would  have  been 
removed,  their  sister  being  their  next  of"  kin. 
.  Another  anecdote  describes  Colonel  Byrd's 
habit  of  taking  a  walk  in  the  Westover 
grounds  every  evening  "  about  dark,"  without 
his  hat.  "  Whatever  company  might  be  in 
the  house  did  not  prevent  his  doing  so.  His 
family  knew  this  to  be  the  time  he  passed  in 
devotion." 

He  died  in  January,  1777.  His  wife's  grief 
was  excessive.  She  obstinately  refused  to 
have  him  buried  for  several  days,  finally  yield- 
ing to  the  necessity  at  the  persuasion  of  her 
neighbor,  Colonel  Harrison  of  Berkeley.  She 
was  a  woman  of  remarkable  ability,  highly 
cultivated  mind,  and  excellent  business  talents. 
Benjamin    Franklin    was    her   god-father    and 


Westover  55 

friend.  She  sold  her  husband's  library  and 
silver  to  assist  in  the  payment  of  his  debts,  and 
was  her  own  plantation  manager. 

When  Benedict  Arnold  landed  at  Westover, 
he  is  said  to  have  made  her  a  prisoner  in  an 
upper  chamber  ;  grazed  his  horses  in  her  har- 
vest-fields and  shot  her  cattle.  He  ravaged 
the  place  twice,  Lord  Cornwallis  once.  Never- 
theless, suspicions  of  her  loyalty  were  so 
strong  that  she  was  twice  summoned  to  Rich- 
mond to  be  tried  as  a  Tory. 

Arthur  Lee  writes  in  i  780,  that  Arnold  car- 
ried on  a  regular  correspondence  with  Mrs. 
Byrd,  until  one  of  his  vessels  happening  to  run 
aground,  her  treason  was  discovered. 

"  I  have  reason,"  he  adds,  "  to  think  she  will 
not  be  tried  at  all,  means  having  been  taken 
to  keep  the  witnesses  out  of  the  way." 

She  died  in  18 14,  and  Westover  was  sold, 
passing  through  many  hands  in  the  next  half- 
century,  remaining  longest  in  the  Selden  fam- 
ily, who  occupied  it  for  thirty  years.  During 
the  Civil  War  it  suffered  severely  in  common 
with  most  James  River  plantations.  General 
Pope  and  other  Federal  officers  used  it  in  turn 
as  headquarters  and  as  a  store-house  for  the 
Commissary  department.     At  the    conclusion 


56        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

of  the  war  it  was  bought  by  Major  A.  H. 
Drewry,  the  hero  of  Drewry's  Bluff.  He  mar- 
ried Miss  Harrison,  a  member  of  a  collateral 
branch  of  the  ancient  race.  There  is  genuine 
satisfaction  in  knowing  that  it  is  again  "back 
in  the  family."  The  Major,  an  able  financier 
and  intelligent  agriculturist,  has  restored  man- 
sion and  farming-lands  to  a  condition  so  nearly 
approximating  that  of  the  "genial  seigneur's" 
times  as  to  deserve  the  gratitude  of  all  who 
survey  the  noble  building  and  smiling  acres. 

Leaving  the  burying-ground  at  our  back, 
we  pass  by  cottage  "quarters  "  and  the  exten- 
sive stables,  where  the  score  of  mules  are  a 
marvel  in  themselves  for  size,  strength  and 
comeliness,  through  the  west  gate,  erected  by 
the  Colonel  Byrd,  into  a  broad  sweep  of  clean 
gravel  curving  up  to  the  house.  The  lawn  is 
incomparable  for  beauty  among  the  river 
homesteads,  rolling  gently  down  to  the  wall 
rebuilt  by  Major  Drewry  on  the  foundation 
of  Colonel  Byrd's,  which  was  demolished  to 
furnish  material  for  Federal  barrack-chimneys. 
The  sward  is  smooth  and  luxuriant,  dotted 
with  grand  trees,  standing  singly  and  in 
clumps.  The  tulip-poplar  on  the  left  of  the 
front-door  is    a    monarch,  carrying  his  crown 


Westover  57 

aloft  with  the   pride  of    a  lusty  octogenarian 
who  has  outlived  his  generation. 

The  view  from  the  squared  stone  steps, 
stained  with  time,  was  especially  beautiful  one 
showery  day  in  April,  when  up-river  floods  had 
dyed  the  waters  a  dull-red.  The  warm  color 
deluded  the  eye  with  the  effect  of  a  sunset  re- 
flection that  seemed  to  light  up  the  rain-swept 
lawn  and  the  gray  boundary-lines  blurred  by 
mists.  And  all  the  while,  the  birds  were  sing- 
ing !  Red-winged  blackbirds,  wrens,  cat-birds, 
mocking-birds,  robins,  American  sparrows, 
red-birds, — these  last  dropping  like  sudden 
flame  from  the  wet  trees,- — thrushes, — every 
little  throat  and  heart  swelling  with  the  gospel, 
"  Behind  the  clouds  is  the  sun  still  shining!" 

Truly,  bright  days  have  come  to  Westover. 
Every  arable  foot  of  the  large  estate  is  under 
cultivation,  and  a  marsh  of  300  acres  over 
which  duck-hunters  and  fishermen  used  to  sail, 
has  been  reclaimed  by  steam-dredge  and 
pump. 

A  great  hall  cuts  the  house  in  two  ;  the 
twisted  balustrades  of  the  stairs  at  the  back 

.  are  of  solid  mahogany ;  all  the  lofty  rooms  are 
wainscoted  up  to  the  ceiling.     Over  the  draw- 

;  ing-room  mantel  Colonel   Byrd  had  a  mirror 


58         Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

built  into  the  wall,  and  framed  in  white  Italian 
marble  wrought  into  grapes,  leaves,  and  ten- 
drils. The  cost  was  five  hundred  pounds. 
The  troops  in  occupation  during  the  war 
shivered  the  mirror  and  beat  the  sides  of  the 
frame  to  pieces,  leaving  the  plainer  setting  at 
bottom  and  top  comparatively  unharmed. 

Through  the  open  back-door  (which  is  the 
carriage-front)  is  visible  a  curious  iron  gate, 
surmounted  by  the  monogram,  "  W.  E.  B." 
The  soldiers  levelled  it  also,  with  the  two  leaden 
eagles  perched  on  stone  globes,  "  with  a  rak- 
ish, degagde  air  positively  disgraceful  at  their 
age  ! "  declares  the  sweet-faced,  sunny-hearted 
mistress  of  the  home.  The  visitors  dislodged 
the  stone  balls  and  pineapples  that  alternate 
upon  the  posts  of  the  fence  dividing  the  yard 
from  the  level  richness  of  the  fields.  Major 
Drewry  sought  and  gathered  up  each  fragment 
and  restored  all  to  their  original  places,  ex- 
pending at  least  $20,000  in  the  work  of  rep- 
aration of  buildings  and  enclosures. 

The  left  corridor  and  wing  pulled  down  by 
the  soldiers,  have  not  been  rebuilt.  A  tool- 
house  stands  above  a  dry  well  once  covered  by 
this  wing.  The  cemented  sides  slope  inward 
toward  the  bottom.     At  a  depth  of  fifteen  feet 


Westover 


59 


are  two  lateral  chambers  eight  feet  square.  The 
walls  are  of  smooth  cement,  the  floors  paved 
with  brick.     In  one  of  these  formerly  stood  a 


A  CURIOUS  IRON  GATE. 


round  stone  table   with    a   central    shaft  and 
spreading  feet.     Again,  tradition  comes  to  our 


60        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

aid  with  tales  of  a  hiding-place  from  the  In- 
dians, connected  with  a  subterranean  passage, 
long  ago  closed,  that  led  to  the  river.  Lean- 
ing over  the  mouth  of  the  shaft,  while  two 
gallant  young  men  descended  a  ladder  with 
lamps  which  revealed  the  arched  entrances  of 
the  mysterious  recesses,  we  three  practical 
women  scouted  Major  Drewry's  suggestions  of 
meat  and  wine  cellars,  and  when  we  had  drawn 
from  him  the  account  of  a  tunnel,  the  mouth  of 
which  was  unearthed  by  his  laborers  but  a  few 
weeks  before,  we  remained  in  possession  of  the 
field.  Nothing  was  clearer  to  our  apprehen- 
sion than  that  this  tunnel — opening  upon  the 
river — five  feet  in  height  and  as  many  wide, 
and  paved  with  flagstones,  formerly  connected 
directly  with  our  vaults,  and  was  constructed 
in  the  near  memory  of  the  Indian  Massacre  of 
1622,  when  in  the  list  of  the"  killed"  we  read 
"  At  West  over  about  a  mile  from  Berkeley  Hun- 
dred, jj."  Had  not  Cooper  described  in  his 
Wcpt-of-Wish-ton-Wish,  just  such  a  well,  in 
which  a  whole  colony  took  refuge  while  the 
blockhouse  was  burned  .over  their  heads  ? 

Berkeley,  the  "Berkeley  Hundred"  of  the 
chronicle,  is  still  in  excellent  preservation,  the 
English  brick  of  which  it  was  built  promising  to 


Westover 


61 


last  two  centuries  longer.  The  owner  of  the 
plantation  at  the  date  of  the  Massacre  was  Mr. 
George  Thorpe,  one  of  the  principal  men  of 
the  colony  who  had  befriended  Opechanca- 
nough— the  uncle  of  Pocahontas— in  every 
possible  manner,  and  treated   all  the   Indians 


s 


BERKELEY. 


with  marked  kindness.  "He  had  been  warned 
of  his  danger  by  a  servant,  but,  making  no 
effort  to  escape,  fell  a  victim  to  his  misplaced 
confidence." 


62        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

The  place  passed  out  of  the  Harrison  fam- 
ily, a  quarter-century  ago,  after  eight  genera- 
tions of  the  name  and  blood  had  owned  it  and 
lived  there.  Gen.  W.  H.  Harrison  was  born  at 
Berkeley,  and  came  to  Virginia,  after  his  elec- 
tion to  the  Presidency,  expressly  to  write  his 
inaugural  "  in  his  mother's  room." 


Ill 

SHIRLEY 

THE  old  homesteads  of  James  River  are 
linked  together  by  ties  of  consanguinity 
and  affection,  interesting  and  sometimes  amus- 
ing to  the  outside  spectator,  yet  exceedingly 
pretty  in  the  natural  acceptation  of  relation- 
ships on  the  part  of  those  involved  in  them. 

The  ramifications  of  blood  and  family  con- 
nections exist  elsewhere  of  course,  but  it  is 
seldom  that  a  locality — such  as  a  village  or 
township — in  Northern  and  Western  States,  is 
settled  entirely  by  cousins  from  generation  to 
generation.  Still  rarer  is  the  custom  of  re- 
cognizing the  kinship  to  the  fifth  and  sixth 
remove,  which  makes  the  Old  Virginia  neifdi- 
borhood  a  standing  illustration  of  the  text — 
u  He  hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations " 
(read  "conditions")  "  of  men." 

63 


64        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

The  utterance  of  the  names  of  a  generation 
is  like  the  whispering  together  of  many  branches 
of  a  genealogical  tree.  Nelson  Page  and  Page 
Nelson  ;  Carter  Page  and  Page  Carter  ;  Mann 
Page  ;  William  Byrd  Page ;  Carter  Harrison 
and  Harrison  Carter ;  Shirley  Harrison;  Byrd 
Harrison;  Shirley  Carter;  Carter  Berkeley; 
Carter  Braxton — and  a  hundred  other  inter- 
changes and  unions  of  surnames  and  baptismal 
praenomens  tell  the  tale  of  intermarriage,  and  of 
affection  for  the  line  "  in  linked  appellation 
long  drawn  out."  One  versed  in  State  history, 
on  hearing  one  of  these  compounded  titles, 
can  arrive,  forthwith,  at  a  fair  apprehension  of 
who  were  the  owner's  forbears,  and  in  what 
county  he  was  born. 

Hill  Carter  of  Shirley,  than  whom  no  Vir- 
ginia planter  of  this  century  was  better  and 
more  favorably  known,  thus  proclaimed  his 
lineage  and  birthplace  with  unmistakable 
distinctness. 

In  161 1,  Sir  Thomas  Dale,  Governor  of  the 
Colony  of  Virginia  and  chiefly  renowned  for 
the  part  he  took  in  forwarding  the  marriage  of 
Rolfe  and  Pocahontas,  laid  out  and  gave  title 
to  the  plantation  of  West  Shirley,  named,  it  is 
said,  in  honor  of  Sir  Thomas  Shirley,  of  Whis- 


Shirley  65 

ton,  England.  It  is  set  down  in  the  history 
of  the  Indian  Massacre  of  1622  as  one  of  the 
"  five  or  six  well-fortified  places  "  into  which  the 
survivors  gathered  for  defence,  leaving  homes, 
cattle,  and  furniture  to  destruction.  There  is 
no  record  of  "  killed  "  at  this  place. 

The  estate  comes  into  historical  prominence 
as  the  seat  of  the  Honorable — sometimes 
called  "  Sir  "—Edward  Hill,  "  a  member  of  His 
Majesty's  Council  in  Virginia,  Colonel  and 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Counties  of  Charles 
City  and  Surry,  Judge  of  his  Majesty's  High 
Court  of  Admiralty,  and  Treasurer  of  Vir- 
ginia." He  was  Speaker  of  the  Assembly  of 
Burgesses  convened  in  November,  1654,  at 
which  time  "  William  Hatcher,  being  convicted 
of  having  stigmatized  Colonel  Edward  Hill, 
Speaker  of  the  House,  as  an  atheist  and  blas- 
phemer, was  compelled  to  make  acknowledg- 
ment of  his  offense  upon  his  knees  before 
Colonel  Hill  and  the  Assembly." 

The  scene  in  the  Assembly-Room  when  the 
sentence  was  carried  into  execution  was,  says 
tradition,  exceedingly  impressive.  The  stifled 
choler  and  sullen  submission  of  the  offender ; 
the  dignity  maintained  by  the  most  Christian 
Speaker,    whose    innocence    of    the    "  stigma- 


66        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

tizing "  charges  was  thus  publicly  disproved  ; 
the  awed  solemnity  of  the  honorable  Burgesses 
in  Council  assembled — were  a  sight  to  make 
the  Albany  of  two  hundred  years  later  stare  in 
dumb  amaze,  and  the  Houses  of  Congress  as- 
sembled at  Washington  shake  with  "  inextin- 
guishable laughter." 

In  1698-99,  the  name  of 
Robert  Carter  is  given  as 
Speaker  of  the  House  and 
Treasurer  of  Virginia.  His 
father,  John  Carter,  emi- 
grated from  England  in 
1649  and  settled,  first  in 
upper  Norfolk,  now  Nanse- 
mond  County,  afterward  in 
carter  coat-of-arms.  Lancaster.  We  hear  of  him 
in  1658  as  chairman  of  a  committee  in  the 
House  of  Burgesses  that  drew  up  a  declaration 
of  popular  sovereignty.  At  the  next  session, 
Col.  Edward  Hill  was  elected  Speaker.  V  Col. 
Moore  Fauntleroy,  of  Rappahannock  County, 
not  being  present  at  the  election,  moved  against 
him  as  if  clandestinely  elected,  and  taxed  the 
House  with  unwarrantable  proceedings  therein. 
He  was  suspended  until  next  day,  when,  ac- 
knowledging his  error,  he  was  readmitted." 


KINQ  CARTER." 


Shirley  69 

In  the  list  of  members  of  this  Assembly,  we 
note  "  Colonel  John  Carter,"  also  "  Mr.  War- 
ham  Horsemander,"  the  father  of  the  first 
Colonel  Byrd's  wife.  It  is  probable  that  an 
intimacy  between  the  two  leading  spirits,  Car- 
ter and  Hill,  had  already  begun  which  extended 
to  their  families. 

Robert  Carter  became  one  of  the  largest 
landholders  in  Virginia,  holding  so  much  real 
estate  in  Lancaster  County  and  elsewhere  as 
to  be  popularly  known  as  "  King  Carter."  He 
held  semi-regal  sway  at  his  homestead,  Coroto- 
man,  on  the  Rappahannock,  built  a  church, 
which  is  still  standing,  and  brought  up  to 
man's  and  woman's  estate  one  dozen  children 
to  keep  alive  his  name  in  his  native  state. 
His  tomb,  sadly  mutilated  by  the  relic-fiend,  is 
at  Corotoman. 

His  son,  John,  married  Col.  Edward  Hill's 
daughter,  Elizabeth,  and  became,  by  virtue  of 
her  succession  to  her  father's  estate,  master  of 
Shirley. 

Benjamin  Harrison,  of  Berkeley,  married 
one  of  King  Carter's  daughters.  Mr.  Har- 
rison and  two  of  his  daughters  were  killed  by  a 
flash  of  lightning  at  Berkeley  some  years  later. 
Another  daughter  married  Mann  Page  of  Tim- 


70        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

berneck.  Without  following  farther  bough  and 
twig  of  the  genealogical  tree  aforesaid,  enough 
has  been  told  to  account  for  the  plentiful  har- 
vest of  Carters  in  Eastern  and  Central  Virginia. 
Annie  Carter  Lee,  wife  of  "  Light  Horse 
Harry"  Lee,  and  mother  of  Robert  E.  Lee, 
was  a  descendant  of  King  Carter,  and  was 
born  at  Shirley. 

The  shores  of  the  watery  highway  from 
Norfolk  to  Richmond  are  strikingly  beautiful, 
especially  in  autumn  and  early  spring.  At  the 
latter  season,  the  winter  wheat  in  rich  luxuri- 
ance rolls  back  to  the  hills  outlying  the  low- 
lands ;  orchards  are  in  full  bloom  ;  snowy  dog- 
wood and  rosy  red-bud  and  the  lovely  fringe- 
tree,  seldom  seen  except  in  Virginia,  alternate 
with  the  pale-green  of  birch  and  willow.  Wide 
spaces  of  the  steeper  banks  are  whitened  by 
wild  lilies  and  reddened  by  columbine.  Every 
bend  of  the  stream  is  historic.  Bermuda  Hun- 
dred, City  Point,  Turkey  Island,  Malvern  Hills, 
Powhatan, — one  of  the  royal  residences  of  the 
stout-hearted  Indian  king, — a  fascinating 
melange  of  legendary  lore  and  exciting  inci- 
dents of  what  every  patriot  prays  may  stand 
forever  on  the  page  of  national  history  at  "  the 
last  war,"— keeps  sense  and  thought  on   the 


JUDITH  ARMISTEAD 
(wife  of  king  carter). 


Shirley  73 

alert,  and  reconciles  the  passenger  to  the  many 
"landings"  and  slow  progress  of  the  steamer 
up  the  river.  The  situation  of  Shirley  on  a 
bluff  affords  the  eye  an  extensive  sweep  of 
land  and  water  in  every  direction.  We  can- 
not but  commend  the  judgment  of  Captain 
John  Smith  and  his  contemporaries  in  select- 
ing this  as  one  of  the  first  forts  built  by  the 
Virginia  colonists.  As  we  have  seen,  it  was 
one  of  the  strongest. 

The  present  manor-house  was  erected  in  the 
17th  century — it  is  said  about  1650.  It  is 
more  compact  in  structure  than  Upper  and 
Lower  Brandon,  Westover,  and  Berkeley. 
The  corridor  extensions  and  flanking  wings  of 
the  first  three  seem  to  have  met  with  no  favor 
in  the  eyes  of  builder  and  owner.  In  form 
and  proportions  the  mansion  reminds  us  rather 
of  a  French  chateau  than  of  an  English 
country-seat  such  as  was  the  model  of  most 
colonial  proprietors.  It  suffered  less  from  the 
civil  war  than  the  others,  and  has  been  kept  in 
perfect  order,  such  restorations  as  were  needful 
being  made  in  keeping  with  the  original  design. 

The  pillared  porch  of  the  water  front  looks 
out  upon  an  elbow  of  the  river.  The  lawn  is 
enclosed  by  a  superb  box-tree  hedge  ;  trees  of 


74        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

flowering;  box  attract  the  earliest  bees  of  the 
season  by  the  sweet  pungency  of  their  odor  ; 
the  garden  squares,  laid  out  and  stocked  in  the 
dear   old   English  style,   are  edged  with  the 


SHIRLEY. 


same  evergreen.  An  ivied  tree  here,  a  wide- 
branching  poplar  there,  and,  nearer  the  water, 
a  clump  of  forest  oaks,  allow  very  unsatisfac- 
tory glimpses  of  the  grand  old  homestead 
from  steamboats  and  other  river  craft. 


Shirley  75 

The  death  of  the  late  master  of  Shirley,  Mr. 
Robert  Randolph  Carter,  which  occurred  in 
the  spring  of  1888,  cast  a  gloom  over  the  en- 
tire neighborhood.  He  was  a  Virginia  gentle- 
man of  the  noblest  stamp,  one  whose  loss  is 
irreparable,  not  only  to  his  family,  but  to  com- 
munity and  State.  We  see  the  traces  of  his 
wise  administration  everywhere  in  the  magnifi- 
cent plantation — in  wheat-fields  hundreds  of 
acres  in  extent ;  luxuriant  corn-lands ;  well- 
kept  stock  and  commodious  cottage  "  quarters," 
to  each  of  which  belongs  a  garden  of  fair  ex- 
tent, neatly  tilled. 

The  central  hall  and  the  staircase  are  re- 
markably fine.  Hatchments  of  great  age  are 
set  over  two  doors.  The  drawing-room  of 
noble  proportions  is  wainscoted  and  elegantly 
furnished.  In  this,  as  in  the  hall  and  dining- 
room,  are  the  likenesses  of  numerous  Hills 
and  Carters.  A  full-length,  life-size  picture  of 
Washington  by  Peale,  hangs  in  the  dining- 
parlor  which  adjoins  the  drawing-room.  One 
of  the  portraits  in  the  latter  apartment  is  of  a 
beautiful  Welsh  heiress,  Miss  Williams,  who 
married  Colonel  (or  Sir)  Edward  Hill  and 
came  with  him  to  America.  The  portrait  of 
John  Carter,  the  lucky  winner  of  Miss  Hill's 


76        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

heart  and  hand,  is  a  three-quarter-length  like- 
ness of  a  gallant  gentleman  in  flowing  peruke 
and  lace  cravat.  His  velvet  coat  is  trimmed 
with  silver  lace  and  buttons  ;  puffed  cambric 
undersleeves  enhance  the  slim  elegance  of  his 
hands.  Beautiful  hands  were  hereditary  with 
the  race  if  limners  told  the  truth. 

His  daughter  Elizabeth,  has  the  same,  and 
is  apparently  aware  of  the  fact.  Her  eyes  are 
almond-shaped,  like  her  father's ;  her  face  is 
plump  and  complacent,  with  more  than  a  dis- 
position to  a* double-chin.  A  coquettish  hat  is 
tied  lightly  on  the  crown  of  the  round  dark 
head ;  her  pale-blue  gown  is  emphatically 
decollete  ;  her  elbow-sleeves  are  edged  with 
priceless  lace.  She  bears  a  strong  resemblance 
to  her  squire  brother,  Charles  Carter,  who 
hangs  near  by.  He  was  an  exemplary  citizen 
and  earnest  Churchman.  His  name  is  among 
those  of  the  lay  delegates  to  the  Episcopal 
Convention  held  in  Richmond  in  1793. 

Had  Elizabeth  Hill  Carter  been  a  dairymaid 
we  would  call  her  buxom,  and  the  set  agree- 
ableness  of  her  smile  a  smirk.  She  married 
at  seventeen  the  third  Colonel  Byrd  of  West- 
over,  and  bore  him  five  children.  The  young 
parents  did  not  live  happily  together,  we  are 


Shirley  77 

told.  Both  were  the  spoiled  children  of  for- 
tune, and  pulled  in  so  many  different  ways 
that  their  misunderstandings  were  neighbor- 
hood gossip.  It  was  surmised  that  it  was 
rather  a  shock  than  a  woe  to  Colonel  Byrd, 
when,  as  he  sat  at  the  whist-table  in  a  friend's 
house,  a  messenger  rode  over  in  hot  haste 
from  Westover  to  tell  him  that  Mrs.  Byrd  had 
pulled  a  wardrobe  over  on  herself  and  been 
instantly  killed.  It  may  have  been  the  infalli- 
ble instinct  of  good  blood  and  breeding  that 
made  him  rise  from  the  table  and  bow  apolo- 
getically to  his  partner  with  a  courteous  regret 
that  the  game  could  not  go  on.  This  partner, 
gossip  hints  furthermore,  was  the  pretty 
"Molly  Willing,"  whom  he  afterward  married. 

Mrs.  Byrd's  accidental  death  occurred  eleven 
years  after  her  marriage,  when  she  was  but 
twenty-eight.  The  date  was  1 760.  The 
chronicle  adds  dryly :  "  There  is  no  record 
preserved  of  his  second  marriage.  It  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  in  1760."  To  round  off 
the  gossipy  tale,  the  story  has  come  down  of 
the  nickname  "  Willing  Molly  "  applied  to  the 
fair  Philadelphian  who  won  the  "catch"  of  the 
county  from  Virginia  belles. 

Without   casting   discredit    upon  local  and 


78         Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

traditional  authorities,  oral  and  documentary, 
we  may  surely  reserve  to  ourselves  the  right, 
in  view  of  what  we  have  learned  elsewhere  of 
Mrs.  Byrd's  character  as  a  woman,  wife,  and 
mother,  of  hinting  at  a  possible  cause  for  the 
tale  and  nickname.  The  Byrds  were  princes 
in  their  own  right  even  as  late  as  i  760,  and  the 
beautiful  visitor  to  the  hospitable  neighborhood 
may  have  shared  the  fate  of  other  poachers. 

She  loved  her  lord  passionately,  faithfully, 
and  always,  we  learn  in  the  history  of  West- 
over.  She  made  him  happier,  and  adminis- 
tered the  affairs  of  the  realm  far  more  judi- 
ciously than  his  first  wife  ever  could,  had  her 
desire  been  never  so  good. 

But  did  this  happy  husband  and  pious  g.en- 
tleman  ever  bethink  himself  in  the  devotional 
promenade  under  his  ancestral  trees  "  about 
dark,"  mentioned  in  our  Westover  paper,  of  the 
child  he  had  first  wedded,  and  give  a  sigh  at 
her  untimely  and  tragic  death  ?  He  may  have 
been  sorely  tried  by  her  caprices  and  flurries, 
but  we  are  heartily  sorry  for  her  when  we  learn 
that  she  grieved  bitterly  for  the  little  boys 
whom  their  father  insisted  upon  sending  to 
England  to  be  educated,  as  was  the  custom  of 
the  Byrds  and  that  she  never  saw  them  again. 


Shirley  79 

In  a  curious  and  now  rare  book  entitled, 
Travels  in  North  America  in  1 780-1 781  and 
1782,  by  the  Marquis  de  Chastelleux,  we  have 
a  glimpse  of  one  of  these  motherless  boys. 
The  noble  tourist  passed  several  days  at  West- 
over  and  is  enthusiastic  in  his  praise  of  poor 
Betty's  successor : 

"  She  is  about  two-and-forty,  with  an  agree- 
able countenance  and  great  sense," — is  a 
sentence  that,  against  our  will,  provokes  com- 
parison with  the  spoiled,  passionate  child. 

"  Betty  "  left  four  children  ;  the  second  Mrs. 
Byrd  had  eight.  The  Frenchman  lauds  her 
excellent  management  of  the  encumbered 
estate,  and  sympathizes  in  her  various  misfor- 
tunes. 

11  Three  times  have  the  English  landed  at 
Westover  under  Arnold  and  Cornwallis,  and, 
'though  these  visits  cost  her  dear,  her  husband's 
former  attachment  to  England,  where  his  eldest 
son  is  now  serving  in  the  army;  her  relationship 
with  Arnold,  whose  cousin-german  she  is,  and 
perhaps,  too,  the  jealousy  of  her  neighbors, 
have  given  birth  to  suspicions  that  war  alone 
was  not  the  object  which  induced  the  English 
always  to  make  their  descents  at  her  habita- 
tion.    She  has  been  accused  even  of  conniv- 


80        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

ance  with  them,  and  the  government  have 
once  set  their  seal  upon  her  papers,  but  she 
has  braved  the  tempest  and  .  defended  herself 
with  firmness." 

We  confess, — again  and  reluctantly — for  our 
hearts  cling  irrationally  to  the  naughty  pickle 
whom  the  paragon  displaced  in  her  husband's, 
and  probably  in  her  children's,  hearts — that 
Betty  would  never  have  steered  a  laden  barque 
thus  safely  through  seas  that  wrecked  many  a 
fair  American  fortune.  It  was  well  for  all 
whose  fates  were  linked  with  hers  that  the 
stormy  chapter  was  short  and  the  end  abrupt. 

In  addition  to  disagreement  with  husband 
and  separation  from  children,  she  had,  as  we 
are  informed  upon  the  authority  of  family 
MSS.,  the  trial  of  a  severely  captious  mother- 
in-law.  The  stepmother  who  pitied  the  fair 
Evelyn,  dying  slowly  of  a  broken  heart,  ruled 
her  son's  girl-wife  sharply.  There  is  extant  a 
letter  in  which  she  complains  of  "  Betty's" 
frivolous  taste  and  extravagance,  and  that  the 
silly  creature  would  think  herself  ruined  for 
time  and  eternity  "  if  she  could  not  have  two 
new  lutestring  gowns  every  year."  It  is  a 
matter  of  traditional  report  that  the  mother- 
in-law   hid    some    of     Betty's    belongings,    or 


ELIZABETH   HILL  CARTER  (     BETTY"). 


"Shirley  83 

something  the  wilful  wife  longed  to  possess, 
on  the  top  of  the  tall  wardrobe.  Others  say 
she  suspected  the  existence  of  letters  that 
would  justify  her  jealous  misgivings  as  to  her 
lord's  fidelity,  and  was  looking  for  them  when 
the  big  press  careened  and  crushed  her. 

The  wraith  of  the  apple-cheeked,  careless- 
eyed  girl,  whose  fixed  smile  grows  tiresome  as 
we  gaze,  may  not  walk  at  Shirley,  as  Evelyn 
Byrd  is  said  to  glide  along  halls  and  staircases 
at  Westover,  but  we  remember  her  and  her 
fate  more  vividly  than  any  other  face  and  his- 
tory committed  to  sight  and  memory  at  the 
ancient  manor-house. 


IV 

THE  MARSHALL  HOUSE 

THE  house  built  by  John  Marshall, — United 
States  Envoy  to  France  1797-98;  Mem- 
ber of  Congress  from  Virginia  1799- 1800; 
Secretary  of  State,  1 800-1 801,  and  Chief-Jus- 
tice of  the  U.  S.  Supreme  Court  1801-35, — 
and  in  which  he  resided  until  his  death,  except 
when  the  duties  of  his  office  called  him  to 
Washington,  is  still  standing  in  Richmond, 
Virginia,  on  the  corner  of  Marshall  and  Ninth 
Streets.  The  ownership  has  remained  in  the 
family  for  almost  a  century,  although  the 
dwelling  has  had  other  tenants,  among  them 
the  late  Henry  A.  Wise. 

The  whole  block  was  covered  by  a  famous 
fruit  and  vegetable  garden  when  the  house 
was  erected.  The  exterior  has  never  been  re- 
modelled, and    there    have  been  few  changes 

84 


The  Marshall  House 


85 


within.  By  an  odd,  and  what  seems  to  us  an 
inexplicable,  mischance,  the  architect,  in  Judge 
Marshall's  prolonged  absence,  built  the  whole 
mansion  "  hind-side  before."     A  handsome  en- 


MARSHALL    HOUSE,   RICHMOND,  VA. 


trance-hall  and  staircase,  the  balusters  of  which 
are  of  carved  cherry,  dark  with  age,  are  at  the 
back,  opening  toward  the  garden  and  domestic 
offices.  Directly  in  front  of  this  is  the  dining- 
room,  looking  upon    Marshall  Street.     What 


86        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

was  meant  in  the  plan  to  be  the  back-door,  in 
the  wall  opposite  the  fireplace,  gives  upon  a 
porch  on  the  same  thoroughfare.  The  general 
entrance  for  visitors  is  by  a  smaller  door  on  the 
side  street.  Turning  to  the  right  from  this 
through  another  door  which  is  a  modern  affair, 
one  finds  himself  in  what  was,  at  first,  a  second 
hall,  lighted  by  two  windows  and  warmed  by 
an  open  fireplace.  This  was  the  family  sitting- 
room  in  olden  times,  although  open  on  two 
sides  to  the  view  of  all  who  might  enter  by 
front  or  back  door. 

Altogether,  the  architectural  and  domestic 
arrangements  of  the  interior  are  refreshingly 
novel  to  one  used  to  the  jealous  privacies 
and  labor-saving  conveniences  of  the  modern 
home.  We  reflect  at  once  that  every  dish  of 
the  great  dinners,  which  were  the  salient  feat- 
ure of  hospitality  then,  must  have  been  brought 
by  hand  across  the  kitchen-yard,  up  the  back 
steps  through  the  misplaced  hall,  and  put  upon 
the  table  which,  we  are  told,  was  set  diagonally 
across  the  room  to  accommodate  the  guests  at 
Judge  Marshall's  celebrated  "  lawyers'  dinners." 

The  Marshall  House  is  now  the  property 
of  Mr.  F.  G.  Ruffin,  whose  wife  is  a  grand- 
daughter of  the  Chief-Justice,  his  only  daugh- 


The  Marshall  House  $7 

ter  having  married  the  late  Gen.  Jaquelin 
Burwell  Harvie. 

Mrs.  Ruffin  gives  a  graphic  description  of 
these  feasts,  as  beheld  by  her,  then  a  child, 
peeping  surreptitiously  through  the  door  left 
ajar  by  the  passing  servants.  The  Chief- 
Justice  sat  at  the  head  of  the  long  board  near- 
est the  fireplace,  his  son-in-law,  Mr.  Harvie, 
at  the  foot.  Between  them  were  never  less 
than  thirty  members  of  the  Virginia  Bar,  and 
the  sons  of  such  as  had  grown,  or  nearly 
grown  lads.  The  damask  cloth  was  covered 
with  good  things  ;  big  barons  of  beef,  joints 
of  mutton  ;  poultry  of  all  kinds  ;  vegetables, 
pickles,  etc.,  and  the  second  course  was  as 
profuse.  The  witty  things  said,  the  roars  of 
laughter  that  applauded  them,  the  succession  of 
humorous  and  wise  talk,  having,  for  the  centre 
of  all,  the  distinguished  master  of  the  feast,  have 
no  written  record,  but  were  never  forgotten  by 
the  participants  in  the  mighty  banquets. 

Besides  his  daughter,  the  Chief-Justice  had 
five  sons  ;  Thomas,  for  whom  his  father  built 
the  house  opposite  his  own,  which  is  still 
standing;  Jaquelin,  the  namesake  of  his  Hu- 
guenot ancestor;  John,  James,  and  Edward. 
The   last-named    died    in    Washington    a  few 


/ 


88        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

years  ago,  at  the  age  of  eighty,  a  clerk  in  one 
of  the  government  offices. 

Judge  Marshall  lived  so  near  our  day,  and 
bore  so  conspicuous  a  part  in  the  history  of 
a  country  which  cherishes  his  fame,  that  every 
tolerably  well-educated  person  is  familiar  with 
his  name  and  public  services. 

Old  residents  of  the  Virginian  capital  like 
to  tell  stories  of  the  well-beloved  eccentric 
who  made  the  modest  building  on  Marshall 
Street  historical.  The  quarter  was  aristocratic 
then.  The  stately  residences  of  Amblers, 
Wickhams,  and  Leighs  claimed  and  made  ex- 
clusiveness,  which  in  her  later  march  Fashion 
laughs  to  scorn.  Nothing  could  make  Judge 
Marshall  fashionable.  His  disregard  of  pre- 
vailing styles,  or  even  neatness  in  apparel, 
was  so  well  known  that  these  peculiarities 
attracted  no  attention  from  his  fellow-citi- 
zens. He  was  a  law  unto  himself  in  dress 
and  habits.  His  cravat — white  by  courtesy — 
was  twisted  into  a  creased  wisp  by  his  nervous 
fingers,  and  the  knot  was  usually  under  his 
ear.  He  wore  his  coat  threadbare  without 
having  it  brushed,  his  shoes  were  untied  and 
the  lacings  trailed  in  the  dust,  and  his  hat  was 
pushed  to  the  back  of  his  head. 


89 


CHIEF-JUSTICE    MARSHALL. 


The  Marshall  House  91 

In  action  he  was  no  less  independent  of 
others'  example  and  criticism.  It  was  the 
custom  then,  in  the  easy-going,  hospitable 
city,  for  gentlemen  who  were  heads  of  fami- 
lies to  do  their  own  marketing.  The  Old 
Market  on  lower  Main  Street  witnessed  many 
friendly  meetings  each  morning  of  "  solid 
men,"  and  echoed  to  much  wise  and  witty 
talk.  Behind  each  gentleman,  stood  and 
walked  a  negro  footman,  bearing  a  big  basket 
in  which  the  oorning  purchases  were  depos- 
ited and  taken  home.  About  the  market- 
place also  hung  men  and  boys,  eager  to  turn 
an  honest  shilling  by  assisting  in  this  burden- 
bearing  if  need  offered. 

Judge  Marshall  shook  hands  and  chatted 
cheerily  with  acquaintances,  who  were  all 
friends  and  admirers,  and  when  his  purchases 
were  made,  shouldered  his  own  basket  or,  if 
as  often  happened,  he  had  forgotten  to  bring 
it,  loaded  himself  up  with  the  provisions  as 
best  suited  his  humor.  His  invariable  prac- 
tice was  to  carry  home  whatever  he  bought  at 
stall  or  shop. 

My  childish  recollection  is  vivid  of  a  scene 
described  in  my  hearing  by  a  distinguished 
Richmond   lawyer,   now    dead,    of   a    meeting 


92        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

with  the  great  jurist  on  the  most  public  part 
of  Main  Street  one  morning  in  Christmas- 
week.  A  huge  turkey,  with  the  legs  tied 
together,  hung,  head  downward,  from  one  of 
the  Judge's  arms,  a  pair  of  ducks  dangled 
from  the  other.  A  brown-paper  bundle,  rud- 
died by  the  beefsteak  it  enveloped,  had  been 
forced  into  a  coat-tail  pocket,  and  festoons  of 
"  chitterlings " — a  homely  dish  of  which  he 
was  as  fond  as  George  the  Third  of  boiled 
mutton  —  overflowed  another,  and  bobbed 
against  his  lean  calves. 

Another  story  is  of  a  young  man  who  had 
lately  removed  to  Richmond,  who  accosted  a 
rusty  stranger  standing  at  the  entrance  to  the 
Markethouse  as  "  old  man,"  and  asked  if  he 
"  would  not  like  to  make  a  ninepence  by  carry- 
ing a  turkey  home  for  him?"  The  rusty 
stranger  took  the  gobbler  without  a  word,  and 
walked  behind  the  young  householder  to  the 
latter's  gate. 

"Catch!"  said  the  "fresh"  youth,  chuck- 
ing ninepence  at  his  hireling. 

The  coin  was  deftly  caught,  and  pocketed, 
and  as  the  old  man  turned  away,  a  well- 
known  citizen,  in  passing,  raised  his  hat  so 
deferentially,   that   the  turkey-buyer  was   sur- 


The  Marshall  House  93 

prised  into  asking,  "  Who  is  that  shabby  old 
fellow?" 

11  The  Chief-Justice  of  the  United  States." 

"  Impossible  ! "  stammered  the  horrified 
blunderer, — "  Why  did  he  bring  my  turkey 
home,  and — take — my  ninepence  ?  " 

"  Probably  to  teach  you  a  lesson  in  good 
breeding  and  independence.  He  will  give  the 
money  away  before  he  gets  home.  You  can't 
get  rid  of  the  lesson.  And  he  would  carry 
ten  turkeys  and  walk  twice  as  far  for  the  joke 
you  have  given  him." 

We  can  easily  imagine  that  the  incident  may 
have  been  related  in  the  host's  raciest  style  at 
the  next  lawyers'  dinner  under  which  the  di- 
agonal table  creaked  in  the,  then,  modern 
homestead.  And  we  wonder  who  got  the  his- 
toric ninepence.  It  would  be  a  priceless  coin, 
were  identification  possible. 

To  admirers  of  the  statesman-patriot,  the 
writer  and  jurist,  a  glimpse  of  the  man,  as  his 
family  saw  him,  when  the  front  and  back  doors 
of  his  reversed  habitation  were  closed  to  the 
world,  will  be  acceptable. 

As  at  Westover  and  Shirley,  the  most  inter- 
esting of  the  procession  of  visionary  shapes 
that  glide  past  the  muser  in  the  chambers  of 


94        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

the  weather-beaten  and  gray  old, house,  is 
woman. 

Mary  Willis  Ambler  was  a  descendant  of 
Edward  Jaquelin,  an  Englishman  of  French- 
Huguenot  extraction,  who  arrived  in  America 
in  1697,  and  settling  at  Jamestown,  became 
eventually  the  owner  of  the  island  plantation. 
His  daughter  Elizabeth  married  Richard  Am- 
bler, and  a  grandson,  Edward  Ambler,  espoused 
Mary  Gary,  George  Washington's  first  love. 
Another  grandson,  Jaquelin  Ambler,  married 
Rebecca  Burwell,  of  whom  Thomas  Jefferson 
was,  when  young,  passionately  enamoured,  and 
Mary  Willis  was  the  second  daughter  of  the 
union.  It  would  appear  from  the  account 
given  of  the  circumstances  attending  her  first 
meeting  with  Mr.  (then  Captain)  John  Mar- 
shall, that  the  talent  for  supplanting  rivals  in 
the  court  of  hearts,  which  brought  two  em- 
bryo Presidents  to  grief,  was  hereditary,  and 
most  innocently  improved  by  herself. 

The  Amblers  were  living  in  York  in  1781- 
'82,  when  a  ball  was  held  in  the  neighborhood, 
to  which  Captain  Marshall,  already  reputed  to 
be  a  young  man  of  genius  and  bravery  was 
bidden.  The  fair  damsels  of  the  district  were 
greatly    excited    at    the   prospect    of  meeting 


The  Marshall  House  95 

him,  and  began,  forthwith,  sportive  projects  for 
captivating  him. 

The  graceful  pen  of  Mary  Ambler's  sister, 
Mrs.  Edward  Carrington,  narrates  what  en- 
sued : 

"  It  is  remarkable  that  my  sister,  then  only 
fourteen,  and  diffident  beyond  all  others,  de- 
clared that  we  were  giving  ourselves  useless 
trouble,  for  that  she  (for  the  first  time)  had 
made  up  her  mind  to  go  to  the  ball — 'though 
she  had  never  been  to  dancing-school — and  was 
'  resolved  to  set  her  cap  at  him  and  eclipse  us 
all.'  This,  in  the  end,  was  singularly  verified. 
At  the  first  introduction,  he  became  devoted 
to  her.  For  my  part  I  felt  not  the  slightest 
wish  to  contest  the  prize  with  her.     .     .     . 

"  In  this,  as  in  every  other  instance,  my  sis- 
ter's superior  discernment  and  solidity  of  char- 
acter have  been  impressed  upon  me.  She  at  a 
glance  discerned  his  character,  and  understood 
how  to  appreciate  it,  while  I,  expecting  to  see 
an  Adonis,  lost  all  desire  of  becoming  agree- 
able in  his  eyes  when  I  beheld  his  awkward 
figure,  unpolished  manners  and  negligent 
dress." 

John  Marshall  and  Mary  Willis  Ambler 
were  married  April  3,    1783,  the  bride  being 


96        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

under  seventeen,  the  groom  twenty-eight  years 
of  age. 

No  fairer  idyl  of  wedded  bliss  was  ever 
penned  by  poet  than  the  every-day  story  lived 
by  this  husband  and  wife  for  fifty  years  save 
two.  However  negligent  in  attire  and  un- 
couth in  appearance  John  Marshall  might  be 
as  young  man  and  old  ;  however  stern  in  de- 
bate and  uncompromising  in  judgment,  as  a 
public  servant, — to  the  child-wife  who,  after 
the  premature  birth  of  her  first  infant,  never 
had  a  day  of  perfect  health,  he  was  the  ten- 
derest,  most  chivalric  of  lovers.  As  her 
chronic  invalidism  became  more  apparent,  he 
redoubled  his  assiduity  of  attention.  There 
are  those  yet  living  who  recall  how,  on  each 
recurring  226.  of  February  and  4th  of  July,  the 
Marshall  chariot  was  brought  around  to  the 
door  in  the  early  morning,  and  the  Judge, 
after  lifting  the  fragile  woman  into  it,  would 
step  into  it  himself  and  accompany  her  to  the 
house  of  a  country  friend,  there  to  pass  the 
day,  her  nerves  being  too  weak  to  endure  the 
shock  of  the  cannonading. 

They  had  been  married  forty-one  years 
when  he  wrote  her  the  letter  of  which  the  fol- 
lowing extract  is  now  published  for  the  first 


The  Marshall  House  97 

time.  He  was  at  that  date,  February  23, 
1824,  on  official  duty  in  Washington,  and  Mrs. 
Marshall  was  in  Richmond.  The  Chief-Justice 
had  had  a  fall  which  injured  his  knee,  and  had 
kept  the  news  from  his  wife.  Finding  from 
her  letters  that  the  papers  had  exaggerated 
the  accident,  he  writes  to  his  "  dearest  Polly," 
making  light  of  the  hurt,  and  assuring  her 
that  he  will  be  out  in  a  few  days.  Then  he 
continues  : 

"  All  the  la'dies  of  Secretaries  have  been  to  see  me, 
some  more  than  once,  and  have  brought  me  more  jelly 
than  I  can  eat,  and  offered  me  a  great  many  good  things. 
I  thank  them  and  stick  to  my  barley  broth. 

"  Still  I  have  plenty  of  time  on  my  hands.  How  do 
you  think  I  beguile  it  ?  I  am  almost  tempted  to  leave 
you  to  guess  until  I  write  again.     .     .     . 

"  You  must  know  I  begin  with  the  ball  at  York  and 
with  the  dinner  on  the  fish  at  your  house  the  next  day. 
I  then  return  to  my  visit  to  York  ;  our  splendid  assem- 
bly at  the  Palace  in  Williamsburg  ;  my  visit  to  Rich- 
mond, where  I  acted  'Pa'  for  a  fortnight;  my  return 
to  the  field  and  the  very  welcome  reception  you  gave  me 
on  my  arrival  from  Dover  ;  our  little  tiffs  and  makings 
up  ;  my  feelings  when  Major  Dick  1  was  courting  you  ; 
my  trip  to  '  The  Cottage,'  [the  Ambler's  home  in  Han- 
over, where  the  marriage  took  place]  and  the  thousand 

1  Major  Richard  Anderson,  father  of  Gen.  Robert  Anderson   of 
Fort  Sumter  renown. 
7 


98        Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

little  incidents  deeply  affecting  in  turn —  [here  the 
paper  is  torn]  coolness  which  contrib  .  .  .  for  a 
time  to  the  happiness  or  misery  of  my  life." 

We  turn  the  yellow,  cracked  sheet  over,  to 
read  again,  with  the  emotion  of  one  who  finds 
hid  treasure  in  an  unpromising  field,  the  prose- 
poem  of  the  lover  who  was  almost  a  septua- 
genarian when  he  wrote  it.  The  grace, 
tenderness,  and  playful  gallantry  of  that  which 
was  meant  only  for  his  wife's  eyes  are  inimita- 
ble, and  preach  a  lesson  to  world-worn,  love- 
sated  hearts  that  no  commentary  can  deepen. 

Another  hitherto  unpublished  letter,  dated 
March  9,  1825,  tells  his  faithful  Polly  of  Mr. 
Adams's  (John  Quincy)  inauguration. 

"  I  administered  the  oath  to  the  President 
in  the  presence  of  an  immense  concourse  of 
people,  in  my  new  suit  of  domestic  manufac- 
ture. He,  too,  was  dressed  in  the  same  man- 
ner, 'though  his  cloth  was  made  at  a  different 
establishment.  The  cloth  is  very  fine  and 
smooth." 

The  day  before  she  died,  Mrs.  Marshall  tied 
about  her  husband's  neck  a  ribbon  to  which 
was  attached  a  locket  containing  some  of  her 
hair.  He  wore  it  always  afterward  by  day  and 
night,  never  allowing  another  hand  to  touch  it. 


o 
<   § 


*  5 
u?  * 
a    -« 

3i 

o    5 

>-     * 

II 

H 

it 

< 


The  Marshall  House  101 

By  his  directions,  it  was  the  last  thing  taken 
from  his  body  after  his  death,  which  took  place 
in  July,  1835. 

An  extract  from  a  paper  found  folded  up 
with  his  will,  a  written  tribute  to  his  wife, 
solemn,  sweet,  and  infinitely  touching,  may 
fitly  close  a  romance  of  real  life  that  tempts 
us  to  cavil  at  what  sounds  like  the  faint  praise 
of  the  resolutions  of  the  Virginia  Bar,  offered 
by  Benjamin  Watkins  Leigh,  in  announcing 
the  death  of  the  Chief-Justice. 

Therein  are  eulogized  his  "  unaffected  sim- 
plicity of  manner  ;  the  spotless  purity  of  his 
morals  ;  his  social,  gentle,  cheerful  disposition  ; 
his  habitual  self-denial  and  boundless  generos- 
ity." He  is  declared  to  have  been  "  exemplary 
in  the  relations  of  son,  brother,  husband,  and 
father." 

"  Exemplary "  is  hardly  the  adjective  we 
would  employ  after  reading  what  was  written 
in  his  locked  study  on  the  first  anniversary  of 
his  "  Polly's  "  departure. 

"December  25,  1832. 

14  This  day  of  joy  and  festivity  to  the  whole 
Christian  world  is,  to  my  sad  heart,  the  anni- 
versary of  the  keenest  affliction  which  human- 


102       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

ity  can  sustain.  While  all  around  is  gladness, 
my  mind  dwells  on  the  silent  tomb,  and  cher- 
ishes the  remembrance  of  the  beloved  object 
it  contains. 

"  On  the  25th  of  December,  1831,  it  was  the 
will  of  Heaven  to  take  to  itself  the  companion 
who  had  sweetened  the  choicest  part  of  my 
life,  had  rendered  toil  a  pleasure,  had  par- 
taken of  all  my  feelings,  and  was  enthroned  in 
the  inmost  recesses  of  my  heart.  Never  can 
I  cease  to  feel  the  loss  and  deplore  it.  Grief 
for  her  is  too  sacred  ever  to  be  profaned  on 
this  day,  which  shall  be,  during  my  existence, 
devoted  to  her  memory. 

"  I  saw  her  the  week  she  had  attained  the 
age  of  fourteen,  and  was  greatly  pleased  with 
her.  Girls  then  came  into  company  much 
earlier  than  at  present.  As  my  attentions, 
'though  without  any  avowed  purpose,  nor  so 
open  or  direct  as  to  alarm,  soon  became  evi- 
dent and  assiduous,  her  heart  received  an 
impression  which  could  never  be  effaced. 
Having  felt  no  prior  attachment,  she  became, 
at  sixteen,  a  most  devoted  wife.  All  my  faults, 
and  they  were  too  many,  could  never  weaken 
this  sentiment.  It  formed  a  part  of  her  exist- 
ence.     Her  judgment   was    so   sound   and  so 


The  Marshall  House 


103 


deep  that  I  have  often  relied  upon  it  in  situa- 
tions of  some  perplexity.  I  do  not  recollect 
once  to  have  regretted  the  adoption  of  her 
opinion.  I  have  sometimes  regretted  its 
rejection." 


CLIVEDEN 

THE  New  World  of  the  American  Colonies 
was  as  blessed  a  godsend  to  the  cadets  of 
noble  English  houses  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago  as  are  Australia,  India,  and  Canada 
to-day. 

Nearly  everyone  of  our  "  old  families"  that 
has  preserved  a  genealogical  tree,  may  discern 
the  beginning  of  its  line  in  a  twig  that  grew 
well  toward  the  terminal  tip  of  the  bough. 

Already,  careers  that  led  to  fortune  and 
renown  were  becoming  scarce  in  the  mother 
country.  The  rich  unclaimed  spaciousness  of 
the  El  Dorado  across  the  sea  attracted,  in 
equal  measure,  the  prudent  and  the  ambitious. 

John  Chew,  merchant,  the  younger  son  of 
a  Somersetshire  family  of  the  same  name, 
sailed  from   England  with  Sarah,  his  wife,  in 

104 


Cliveden  105 

the  Seaflower  in  1622,  and  was  received  with 
open  arms  by  those  of  his  own  name  and 
blood,  who  had,  a  year  earlier,  settled  in 
Virginia.  Hogg  Island  (now 
"  Homewood")  a  little  be- 
low Jamestown,  in  the 
widening  James  River,  is 
said  to  have  been  the  place 
of  landing.      His  name  oc- 

,  r  1  i  CHEW  COAT  OF  ARMS. 

curs  in  several  grants  ot  land 
by,  and  memorials  addressed  to,  the  parent 
government  in  1642-4,  and  as  a  member 
of  the  Honorable  House  of  Burgesses  of  the 
Colony  of  Virginia,  yearly,  from  1623-43,  a 
protracted  period  of  service,  which  is  silent 
testimony  to  personal  probity  and  official 
ability.  His  term  of  office  embraced  the 
latter  part  of  the  reign  of  James  I.  whose  death 
his  loving  colonists  mourned  in  1625,  and, 
almost  the  whole  of  that  of  his  unhappy 
successor. 

Strafford  and  ^  Laud  had  perished  on  the 
scaffold,  and  Charles  I.  had  departed  from 
London  upon  the  seven  years  of  conflict  and 
captivity  that  were  to  end  in  the  shadow  of 
Whitehall,  January  30,  1649,  when  the  thriving 
merchant,  against  the  will  of  Governor  Berke- 


106      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

ley,  removed  to  Maryland.  The  earliest  date 
of  the  exodus  given  is  1643.  John  Chew  was, 
therefore,  one  of  the  body  that  listened  to  the 
comfortable  words  conveyed  in  the  king's 
letter,  "Given  at  our  Court  of  York  the  ^th  of 
July,  1642." 

In  this  instrument,  drawn  up  by  the  king's 
secretary,  on  the  eve  of  the  grand  rebellion, 
the  sovereign  engages  not  to  restore  the  de- 
tested Virginia  Company  to  their  rule  over  the 
colony,  and  expresses  the  royal  approval  of 
"your  acknowledgments  of  our  great  bounty 
and  favors  toward  you,  and  your  so  earnest 
desire  to  continue  under  our  immediate  pro- 
tection." 

When  the  head  of  his  royal  master  rolled 
on  the  scaffold,  John  Chew,  who  appears,  from 
the  hints  transmitted  to  us  of  his  individual 
^traits,  to  have  been  of  a  provident  and  pacific 
turn  of  mind,  was  living  upon  the  extensive 
estate  deeded  to  him  in  the  province  of  Mary- 
land, the  original  bulk  of  which  was  swollen  by 
five  hundred  acres,  paid  for  in  tobacco,  at  the 
rate  of  ten  pounds  of  the  Virginia  weed  per 
acre. 

His  eldest  son,  Samuel  Chew,  made  a   will 
before  his  death  in  1676,  bequeathing  most  of 


Cliveden  107 

the  "  Town  of  Herrington,"  with  other  prop- 
erties, including  "  Negroes,  able-bodied  Eng- 
lishmen, and  hogsheads  of  tobacco,"  to  his 
heirs.  His  Quaker  wife,  Anne  Chew,  nde 
Ayres,  was  his  executrix.  Her  son,  Dr.  Sam- 
uel Chew,  removed,  in  mature  manhood,  to 
Dover,  then  included  in  the  Province  of  Penn- 
sylvania. 

Anne  Ayres  had  brought  the  whole  family 
over  to  her  peaceful  faith,  and  Dr.  Samuel 
(also  known  as  Judge)  Chew  remained  a 
member  of  the  Society  of  Friends  until  the 
celebrated  battle  in  the  Assembly  of  Pennsyl- 
vania over  the  Governor's  recommendation  of 
a  Militia  Law.  When  this  was  passed,  the 
Quaker  members  of  the  legislative  body  ap- 
pealed to  the  court  over  which  Samuel  Chew 
presided  as  Chief-Justice.  With  promptness 
that  smacks  of  un-Friend-like  indignation,  they 
proceeded  to  expel  him  "  from  meeting"  upon 
his  decision  that  "  self-defense  was  not  only 
lawful,  but  obligatory  upon  God's  citizens." 

He  may  not  have  regretted  the  act  of  ex- 
cision, so  far  as  it  affected  himself.  His  pub- 
lished commentary  upon  the  temper  it  evinced 
is  spirited  to  raciness.  In  it  he  declares  the 
"  Bulls    of    Excommunication "    of    his    late 


108      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

brethren  to  be  '*  as  full-fraught  with  fire  and 
brimstone  and  other  church  artillery,  as  even 
those  of  the  Pope  of  Rome." 

In  a  charge  to  the  Grand  Jury,  delivered 
shortly  after  the  publication  of  this  philippic, 
he  says  of  his  belief  that,  in  his  public  acts  he 
was  "  accountable  to  His  Majesty  alone,  and 
subject  to  no  other  control  than  the  laws  of  the 
land," 

"  I  am  mistaken,  it  seems,  and  am  account- 
able for  what  I  shall  transact  in  the  King's 
Courts  to  a  paltry  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction 
that  calls  itself  a  '  Monthly  Meeting.'  '  Tell 
it  not  in  Gath,  publish  it  not  in  Askelon ' ! " 

Benjamin  Chew,  the  eldest  son  of  the  pugna- 
cious and  deposed  Quaker,  was  born  in 
November,  1722.  His  profession  was  the  law, 
and  he  rose  rapidly  to  eminence.  Prior  to 
his  removal  to  Philadelphia  in  1  754,  at  the  age 
of  thirty-two,  he  was  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Delegates  at  Dover,  Delaware.  In  1755  he 
became  Attorney-General  of  the  State  of 
Pennsylvania;  in  1756,  Recorder  of  the  City 
of  Philadelphia;  in  1774,  Chief-Justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Pennsylvania. 

His  diplomatic  yet  decisive  reply  to  one 
who,     seeking    to    convict    him    of    Toryism, 


iog 


CHIEF-JUSTICE  BENJAMIN  CHEW. 

FROM  THE  ORIGINAL   PAINTING   IN  THE  NATIONAL  MUSEUM,  PHILA. 


Cliveden  1 1 1 

pushed  him  for  a  definition  of  high  treason, 
is  historic : 

"  Opposition  by  force  of  arms,  to  the  lawful  authority 
of  the  King  or  his  Ministers,  is  High  Treason.  But" — 
[turning  an  unblenching  front  to  those  who  tried  to 
entangle  him  in  his  talk] — "  in  the  moment  when  the 
King  or  his  Ministers  shall  exceed  the  Constitutional 
authority  vested  in  them  by  the  Constitution — submis- 
sion to  their  mandate  becomes  Treason  !  " 

Despite  this  doughty  deliverance,  his  judi- 
cial qualms  as  to  expediency  of  overt  rebellion 
cost  him  his  liberty  in  1777.  Fourteen  years 
earlier  he  had  bought  land  on  what  is  known 
as  the  Old  Germantown  Road,  erected  upon 
a  commanding  site  a  fine  stone  mansion,  and 
given  to  the  estate  the  name  of  Cliveden. 
Up  to  the  date  of  the  erection  of  this  dwell- 
ing he  resided  winter  and  summer  on  Third 
Street,  below  Walnut,  in  the  City  of  Phila- 
delphia. Washington  and  John  Adams  dined 
together  with  him  there  while  Congress  sat  in 
Philadelphia,  in  1774.  Mr.  Adams's  letter 
relative  to  the  "turtle,  flummery,  and  Ma- 
deira "  of  the  banquet  is  well  known. 

Neither  congressional  nor  military  influence 
availed    against    the    sentence    that    sent    the 


ii2       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

stately  host  and  his  friend,  John  Penn,  under 
arrest  to  Fredericksburg,  Virginia,  for  recu- 
sancy, in  that  they  refused  to  sign  a  parole  not 
to  interfere  with,  or  impede  in  any  manner,  the 
course  of  the  new  Government.  Subse- 
quently, the  exile  was  rendered  more  toler- 
able by  permission  to  sojourn  during  the 
remaining  term  of  banishment  at  the  Union 
Iron  Works,  owned  by  Mr.  Chew,  in  the 
vicinity  of  Burlington,  N.  J.  In  1778  came 
an  imperative  order  from  Congress  for  the 
rehabilitation  of  the  two  eminent,  and,  it  was 
believed,  unjustly  suspected,  citizens. 

A  "  biographical  memoir "  of  Benjamin 
Chew  published  in  181 1,  thus  defines  and 
justifies  the  position  he  maintained  through- 
out the  contest  between  the  Colonies  and  the 
Parent  Country. 

"  His  object  was  reform,  rather  than  revolution — 
redress  of  grievances,  rather  than  independence.  Ac- 
cordingly, when  the  question  of  an  entire  separation  of 
the  colonies  from  the  British  empire  began  to  be  first 
agitated  in  private  meetings,  he  was  opposed  to  the 
measure,  and  when,  at  length,  independence  was  de- 
clared, he  thought  the  step  precipitate  and  rash.  Nor 
could  any  consideration  of  interest,  policy,  or  ambition 
induce  him,  after  that  epoch,  to  aid  by  his  counsels 
proceedings  which  were  contrary  to  the  decisions  of  his 


Cliveden  113 

judgment,  and,  perhaps,  I  may  add,  to  the  affections  of 
his  heart.     .     .     . 

"  As  an  apology  for  Mr.  Chew's  opposition  to  the  pol- 
icy of  independence  when  first  declared,  we  might 
adduce  the  example  of  some  of  the  most  distinguished 
orators  and  statesmen  of  the  day,  whose  dislike  of  the 
measure  was  no  less  strong  and  notorious  than  his. 
The  only  difference  which  marked  their  conduct  on 
the  occasion  was  that  he  perseveringly  retained  his 
original  impressions,  while  they,  more  pliable,  and  per- 
haps more  prudent,  changed  with  the  current  of  public 
opinion." 

In  the  absence  of  the  master,  Cliveden  had 
seen  strange  things.  Early  on  the  morning 
of  October  4,  1777,  the  American  troops  in 
pursuit  of  the  retreating  enemy,  who  had  aban- 
doned tents  and  baggage  at  Wayne's  impetu 
ous  charge,  were  surprised  as  they  pressed 
down  the  Germantown  Road,  by  a  brisk  fire 
of  musketry  from  the  windows  of  Cliveden. 
A  hurried  council  of  war,  collected  about  the 
Commander-in-chief,  acting  upon  General 
Knox's  dictum  that  "  it  was  unmilitary  to 
leave  a  garrisoned  castle  in  their  rear,"  sent 
an  officer  with  a  flag  of  truce  to  demand  a  sur- 
render. He  was  fired  upon  and  killed.  Can- 
non were  planted  in  the  road,  and  a  steady 
fire  with  six-pounders  opened  upon  the  thick 


ii4      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

walls.  The  balls  rebounded  like  pebbles. 
The  lower  windows  were  closed  and  barred. 
The  six  companies  of  British  soldiers  that  had 
occupied  the  building  sent  volley  after  volley 
from  the  gratings  of  the  cellars  and  from 
the  second  story.  The  gallant  Chevalier  de 
Maudit,  scarcely  twenty-one  years  of  age, 
and  Colonel  Laurens,  also  in  the  prime  of 
early  manhood,  forced  a  window  at  the  back 
and,  ordering  their  men  to  pile  straw  and  hay 
against  the  door  and  fire  it,  leaped  into  a 
room  on  the  ground  floor.  They  were  re- 
ceived by  a  pistol-shot  that  wounded  Laurens 
in  the  shoulder,  while  a  second,  aimed  at  de 
Maudit,  killed  the  English  officer  who  had 
rushed  forward  to  arrest  him.  Finding  them- 
selves alone  among  foes,  the  command  to  fire 
and  force  the  door  not  having  been  obeyed, 
the  intrepid  youths  retreated  backward  to  the 
window  by  which  they  had  entered,  dropped 
to  the  ground,  and  made  their  way  to 
their  comrades,  under  a  hot  hail  of  bullets. 
To  the  delay  occasioned  by  the  short,  unsuc- 
cessful siege  of  Cliveden  is  generally  attrib- 
uted the  loss  of  the  battle  of  Germantown  to 
the  Americans.  But  at  least  one  historian  is 
disposed  to  regard  it 


Cliveden  115 

"  as  another  manifestation  of  the  Divine  interposition 
in  behalf  of  these  States.  If  General  Washington  had 
met  with  no  obstacle,  he  would,  under  the  thickness 
of  the  fog,  have  closed  with  the  main  body  of  the 
enemy  before  he  could  have  been  apprised  of  its  prox- 
imity, and  thus  his  centre  and  a  part  of  his  left  wing 
would  have  been  committed  to  a  general  action  with  the 
whole  British  army." 

A  descendant  of  the  house  of  Chew  puts  a 
different  face  upon  this  affair  :l 

"  General  Washington  was  an  intimate  friend  of  the 
family,  and,  at  the  battle  of  Germantown,  when  Cliveden 
was  occupied  by  a  detachment  of  British  troops,  insist- 
ing that  he  was  familiar  with  every  part  of  the  house, 
he  mistook  for  English  intrenchments  an  addition  which 
had  been  put  up  since  his  last  visit  and  ordered  his  men 
to  fire  into  the  house,  shattering  the  doors  and  windows." 

The  judicial  reader  can  select  what  appears 
to  him  the  more  probable  and  consistent 
version  of  the  incident.  The  old  doors  are 
exhibited  as  a  proof  that  there  was  an  attack 
from  without.  They  were  so  battered  by 
bullets  that  new  ones  had  to  be  put  into  the 
ancient  frames. 

Another  and  more  precious  relic  of  that 
stormy  period  is  a  small  pamphlet  containing  an 

1  Mrs.  Sophia  Howard  Ward  in  The  Century  Magazine  for 
March,  1894. 


n6      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

account  of  the  "  Mischianza,"  a  pageant  u  com- 
bining the  modern  parade  with  the  mediaeval 
tournament,"  given  as  a  farewell  entertain- 
ment on  May  18,  1778,  in  honor  of  Sir  Wil- 
liam Howe,  then  commanding  the  British 
troops  in  America.  The  narrative  was  written 
by  Major  Andre,  a  favored  guest  at  Cliveden. 
The  four  daughters  of  Judge  Chew  were 
celebrated  for  their  beauty.  Margaret,  popu- 
larly known  as  "  pretty  Peggy,"  was  the 
especial  object  of  the  young  officer's  admira- 
tion. 

Her  great-granddaughter  sets  the  souvenir 
vividly  before  us,  with  the  picture  of  the  writer 
who  was  Peggy's  knight  in  the  combination 
"show." 

"  Faded  and  yellow  with  age,  the  little  parchment 
vividly  calls  up  before  us  the  gallant  young  English  of- 
ficer, eager  and  full  of  keen  interest,  throwing  himself 
with  youthful  ardor,  with  light-hearted  seriousness,  into 
this  bit  of  superb  frivolity.  On  the  cover  he  has  outlined 
a  wreath  of  leaves  around  the  initials  '  P.  C.,'  and  he 
has  made  a  water-color  sketch  to  show  the  design  and 
colors  of  his  costume  as  a  knight  of  the  '  Blended  Rose,' 
and  that  of  his  brother,  Lieutenant  William  Lewis  Andre, 
who  acted  as  his  esquire  and  bore  his  shield  with  its 
quaint  motto,  '  No  rival.'  The  device,  '  Two  game 
cocks  fighting,'  must  have  proved  too  difficult  to  draw, 


Cliveden 


117 


for  he  uses   in  his  picture  that  of   Captain  Watson — a 
heart  and  a  wreath  of  laurel,  '  Love  and  Glory.'  " 

A  part  in  the  "  Mischianza"  was  allotted  to 
Margaret  Shippen,  the  betrothed,  and   shortly 


afterward  the  wife  of  Benedict  Arnold.  At 
the  last  moment  her  father,  Chief- Justice 
Shippen,  forbade  her  appearance. 


n8      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

Among"  the  mementoes  of  Andre's  memor- 
able sojourn  at  Cliveden  are  several  poems 
(by  courtesy),  addressed  by  him  to  his  fair 
friend.  Chancing  to  see  her  walking  in  the 
orchard,  "  under  green  apple  boughs,"  he 
dashed  off  this  impromptu  : 

"  The  Hebrews  write  and  those  who  can 
Believe  an  apple  tempted  man 
To  touch  the  tree  exempt  ; 
Tho'  tasted  at  a  vast  expense, 
'T  was  too  delicious  to  the  sense, 
Not  mortally  to  tempt. 

But  had  the  tree  of  knowledge  bloomed, 
Its  branches  by  much  fruit  perfumed, 
As  here  enchants  my  view — 
What  mortal  Adam's  taste  could  blame, 
Who  would  not  die  to  eat  the  same, 
When  gods  might  wish  a  Chew  ?  " 

I 
From  Andre's  brochure  we  learn  in  what 
guise  "  Miss  P.  Chew," — opposite  whose  name 
on  the  programme  stand  those  of  "  Captin 
Andre  26th"  and  "Esq.  Mr.  Andre  7th"— 
captivated  the  eyes  of  the  spectators  on  that 
day  : 

"  The  ladies  selected  from  the  foremost  in  youth, 
beauty  and  fashion,  were  habited  in  fancy  dresses.  They 
wore  gauze  Turbans  spangled  and  edged  with  gold  or 


Cliveden  119 

Silver,  on  the  right  side  a  veil  of  the  same  kind  hung 
as  low  as  the  waist,  and  the  left  side  of  the  Turban 
was  enriched  with  pearl  and  tassels  of  gold  or  Silver  & 
crested  with  a  feather.  The  dress  was  of  the  polonaise 
Kind  and  of  white  Silk  with  long  sleeves,  the  Sashes 
which  were  worn  round  the  waist  and  were  tied  with 
a  large  bow  on  the  left  side  hung  very  low  and  were 
trimmed  spangled  and  fringed  according  to  the  Colours 
of  the  Knight.  The  Ladies  of  the  black  Champions 
were  on  the  right,  those  of  the  white  on  the  left." 

He  wrote  to  her  at  parting  : 

"  If  at  the  close  of  war  and  strife, 
My  destiny  once  more 
Should  in  the  various  paths  of  life, 
Conduct  me  to  this  shore  ; 

Should  British  banners  guard  the  land, 

And  faction  be  restrained  ; 
And  Cliveden's  peaceful  mansion  stand 

No  more  with  blood  bestained  ; 
Say,  wilt  thou  then  receive  again 

And  welcome  to  thy  sight, 
The  youth  who  bids  with  stifled  pain 

His  sad  farewell  to-night  ?  " 

Major  Andre  was  a  brave  man,  and  as  un- 
fortunate as  brave  ;  but  in  perusing  this  senti- 
mental jingle,  and  hearing  of  the  drawing  in 
the  possession  of  the  Baltimore  Howards,  in 
which    his    own    portrait    in    water-colors    is 


120      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

sketched  in  the  character  of  Miss  Peggy 
Chew's  knight,  and  "  humbly-inscribed "  to 
her,  "  by  her  most  devoted  Knight  and  Ser- 
vant, J.  A.  Knt,  Bd.  Re.,  Philadelphia,  June 
2,  1778,"  we  may  be  permitted  a  sighful 
thought  of  Honora  Sneyd  keeping  the  vestal 
fires  of  love  and  memory  alight  in  her  heart 
for  her  absent,  and  soon-to-be-dead  lover. 

The  fair  Peggy  did  not  pine  in  virgin  love- 
liness for  the  handsome  youth  whose  "  sad 
farewell "  acquires  dignity  not  of  itself,  in  the 
recollection  of  the  brief  path  of  life  that  re- 
mained to  him  after  this  was  penned.  With 
the  buoyancy  of  a  happy  temperament,  and 
hopefulness  engendered  by  past  triumphs,  our 
belle  thus  moralizes  in  the  letter  expressive  of 
her  regret  for  the  evacuation  of  Philadelphia 
by  the  gay  and  chivalric  officers  : 

"  What  is  life,  in  short,  but  one  continued 
scene  of  pain  and  pleasure,  varied  and  chec- 
quered  with  black  spots  like  the  chess-board, 
only  to  set  the  fair  ones  in  a  purer  light  ? 

"  What  a  mixture  of  people  have  I  lately 
seen  ! "  she  writes  further.  "  I  like  to  have 
something  to  say  to  all." 

She  evidently  especially  liked  to  say  a  good 
many    somethings    to    the    pink    of   chivalry 


Cliveden  121 

whose  untimely  taking-off  was  mourned  by 
two  continents.  Combining  our  knowledge 
of  the  catholicity  of  the  accomplished  Major's 
admiration  for  beauty,  wherever  found,  with 
Miss  Peggy's  willingness  to  be  amused  and 
adored,  and  her  "  high  relish  for  pleasure," 
we  may  reasonably  assume  that  in  the  pretty 
routine  of  ball,  tournament  and  masque  which 
made  the  winter  of  1778  memorable  to  the 
11  upper  ten  "  of  the  city  of  genealogies,  it  was 
diamond  cut  diamond  between  them. 

There  was  a  brilliant  wedding  in  the  town- 
house  on  South  Third  Street  in  1787.  Mis- 
tress Margaret  had  queened  it  bravely  for 
ten  years  in  the  foremost  rank  of  fashionable 
society  before  she  bestowed  her  hand  upon 
the  accomplished  gentleman  and  warrior, 
Colonel  John  Eager  Howard  of  Baltimore. 
Distinguished  among  the  high-born  company 
assembled  to  grace  the  nuptials  was  General 
Washington,  then  President  of  the  Conven- 
tion that  formed  the  Constitution  of  these 
United  States.  The  host,  Chief-Justice  Chew, 
was,  as  has  been  said,  a  warm  personal  friend 
of  the  Commander-in-Chief  and  President, 
mutual  regard  that  continued  as  long  as  they 
both  lived. 


122      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

We  do  not  wonder — the  wonder  would  be 
if  the  reverse  were  true — that  pretty  Peggy 
always  kept  a  sure  place  on  the  sunny  side  of 
her  heart  for  the  ill-starred  knight  who  wore 
her  colors  in  the  "  Mischianza  "  and  beguiled 
so  many  hours  of  possible  ennui.  The  docu- 
ment descriptive  of  the  merry-making  was 
sacredly  cherished  by  her  while  she  lived,  and 
formally  bequeathed  to  her  daughter,  Mrs. 
William  Read  of  Baltimore.  It  was  quite 
as  natural  that  her  husband,  loyal  to  the  back- 
bone to  the  National  cause,  should,  now  and 
then,  grow  restive  under  her  sentimental  remin- 
iscences. To  borrow  again  from  the  sprightly 
narrative  of  her  great-granddaughter  : 

"  Nine  years  after  the  '  Mischianza,'  when  she  had 
married  Colonel  John  Eager  Howard,  the  hero  of 
Cowpens,  she  still  loved  to  dwell  upon  Major  Andrews 
charms,  which  frequently  irritated  her  patriotic  husband. 
Once,  sitting  at  the  head  of  her  table  at  Belvidere,  her 
home  in  Baltimore,  entertaining  some  distinguished 
foreigners,  she  said,  '  Major  Andre  was  a  most  witty 
and  cultivated  gentleman  '  ;  whereupon  Colonel  Howard 

interrupted  sternly,  '  He  was  a spy,  sir  ;  nothing  but 

a spy  ! '  " 

Cliveden,  battered  and  scorched  by  the 
short,  sharp  siege    of  that  October    morning, 


123 


COLONEL  JOHN   EAGER   HOWARD. 

FROM  A  PAINTING  BY  CHESTER   HARDING. 


Cliveden  125 

was  sold  by  Mr.  Chew  in  1779  to  Blair 
McClenachan.  In  1797,  ten  years  after  pretty 
Peggy's  wedding,  her  father  bought  back 
his  country-seat.  It  was  in  little  better  con- 
dition than  when  Mr.  McClenachan  purchased 
it,  yet,  in  his  desire  to  regain  possession,  Mr. 
Chew  nearly  trebled  the  amount  he  had 
received  for  it. 

Benjamin  Chew  died  at  the  age  of  eighty- 
seven,  Jan.  20,  1 8 10.  The  last  public  office 
held  by  him  was  that  of  President-Judge  of 
the  High  Court  of  Errors  and  Appeals  ;  a 
trust  retained  for  fifteen  years,  and  resigned 
when  he  was  eighty-three. 

His  only  son,  Benjamin  Chew,  Jr.,  had  but 
a  twelfth  part  of  the  princely  estate  left  by 
the  father,  there  being  eleven  daughters. 
Coming  of  a  race  of  lawyers,  he  studied  his 
profession,  first  in  Philadelphia,  then  in  Eng- 
land. In  1825,  during  Lafayette's  visit  to 
America,  he  held  a  grand  reception  at  the 
Germantown  residence  of  the  eminent  jurist, 
who  had  then  retired  from  the  active  duties 
of  professional  life. 

Mr.  Chew  died  April  30,  1844,  at  the  ad- 
vanced age  of  eighty-five. 

In  a  hale  old  age  Cliveden  stands,  unmoved 


126      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

by  the  fast-changing  scenes  about  her.  The 
walls  are  of  rough  gray  stone  ;  the  entrance 
is  guarded  by  marble  lions,  blinded  and 
defaced  by  age.  To  the  right  and  left  of 
the  pillars  dividing  the  stately  hall  from  the 
staircase,  hang  full-length  family  portraits, 
older  than  the  house.  The  iron  hail  that 
scarred  the  facade  of  the  mansion,  left  traces, 
like  the  writing  of  doom,  upon  the  inner  walls. 

The  day  of  our  visit  to  the  ancient  home- 
stead was  bleak  with  wintry  storm.  The  fine 
trees  on  the  lawn  bent  and  dripped  with  the 
heavy  weight  of  rain.  The  four  windows  of 
the  great  drawing-room  showed  little  with- 
out except  the  gray  pall  wavering  between 
us  and  the  nearest  houses.  In  the  chimney 
burned  a  fire,  the  welcoming  glow  of  which 
prepared  us  for  the  reception  accorded  to  the 
stranger  within  her  gates  by  the  gracious 
gentlewoman  who  arose  from  the  sofa  at  our 
entrance.  In  a  ripe  old  age  that  had  not 
benumbed  heart  or  mind,  Miss  Anne  Penn 
Chew,  the  then  owner  of  Cliveden,  was  a  pict- 
uresque figure  of  whom  I  would  fain  say  more 
than  the  restrictions  of  this  chapter  warrant. 

Over  the  mantel  is  the  portrait  of  her  father, 
of  whom  it  is  written  that  "  he  led  a  blameless 


Cliveden  129 

life  of  princely  hospitality  and  benevolence, 
doing  good.  .  .  .  He  was  a  firm  friend,  an 
indulgent  father  and  an  elegant  gentleman  of 
polished  manners,  singular  symmetry  of  form 
and  feature,  and  great  strength."  Antique 
mirrors,  in  carved  frames,  that  once  belonged 
to  William  Penn,  hang  between  the  windows 
and  in  a  recess  by  the  mantel. 

The  dining-room  across  the  hall  has  a  cav- 
ernous fireplace  which  recalls  the  generous  hos- 
pitality of  former  years.  Miss  Chew  related, 
as  we  lingered  to  admire  it,  that  the  collation 
served  at  the  Lafayette  reception  was  laid  in 
the  drawing-room,  and  that  the  painter  of  the 
scene  sacrificed  historical  verity  to  artistic  effect 
in  setting  the  principal  actors  between  the  pillars 
of  the  hall  with  the  staircase  as  a  background. 

The  old  Chew  coach  occupies  the  farthest 
corner  of  the  carriage-house.  It  is  roomy  be- 
yond the  compass  of  the  modern  imagination, 
and  is  swung  so  high  from  the  ground  that  one 
is  helped  to  a  comprehension  of  the  upsettings 
and  overturnings  that  enter  so  frequently  and 
naturally  into  the  stories  of  that  time. 

In  the  back  wall  of  the  kitchen,  built  into  a 
niche  of  solid  masonry,  is  an  old  well.  This 
part  of  the  house  was  standing  on  the  ground 


130      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 


bought  by  Judge  Chew  in  1763.  Tradition 
has  it  that  the  well  was  dug  in  the  recess,  which 
could,  at  short  notice,  be  enclosed  with  heavy 
doors,  in  order  to  secure  a  supply  of  water 
within  the  dwelling  if  it  were  attacked  by  In- 
dians. 

Mr.  Beverly  Chew,  the  scholarly  President 
of  the  Grolier  Club  of  New  York  City,  and 
eminent  as  a  book-lover  and  collector  of  rare 
prints  and  priceless  "  first  editions,"  is  de- 
scended from  the  ancient  stock  through  Joseph 
Chew,  a  younger  brother  of  the  immigrant, 
John.  Every  vestige  of  the  dwelling  built  by 
the  latter  upon  the  fertile  island  in  the  James 
River  has  disappeared,  but  the  site  is  still 
pointed  out  to  the  curious  visitor. 


CHEW   COACH. 


VI 


THE  MORRIS  HOUSE,  GERMANTOWN, 
(PHILADELPHIA) 

HISTORIAN,  painter,  and  poet  have  made 
familiar  to  us  the  story  of  the  imprisoned 
Huguenot,  condemned  to  die  from  starvation, 
who  was  kept  alive  by  the  seeming-  accident 
that  a  hen  laid  an  egg  daily  on  the  sill  of  his 
grated  window. 

From  this  French  Perot  descended  Elliston 
Perot  Morris,  the  present  proprietor  of  the  old 
house  on  the  Germantown  Road,  which  is  the 
subject  of  this  sketch. 

It  was  built  in  1772  by  a  German,  David 
Deshler,  long  and  honorably  known  as  a  Phila- 
delphia merchant.  A  pleasant  story  goes  that 
the  facade  of  the  solid  stone  mansion  would 
have  been  broader  by  some  feet  had  the  sylvan 
tastes  of  the  owner  allowed  him  to  fell  a  fine 
plum-tree  that  grew  to  the  left  of  the  proposed 

131 


132      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

site.  The  garden  was  the  marvel  of  the  region 
during  his  occupancy  of  the  country-seat,  and 
was  flanked  by  thrifty  orchards  and  vineyards. 
At  Deshler's  death  in  1792,  the  Germantown 
estate  passed  into  the  hands  of  Colonel  Isaac 
Franks,  an  officer  who  had  served  in  the  Rev- 
olutionary War.  He  had  owned  it  but  a  year, 
when  the  yellow  fever  broke  out  in  Philadel- 
phia, then  the  seat  of  the  National  Govern- 
ment. Colonel  Franks  with  his  family  retreated 
hurriedly  to  the  higher  ground  and  protecting 
mountain-barrier  of  Bethlehem,  although  Ger- 
mantown was  considered  a  safe  refuge  by  the 
citizens  of  Philadelphia.  Shortly  after  the 
Franks's  flitting,  the  Colonel  received  a  visit 
from  President  Washington's  man  of  affairs,  a 
Germantown  citizen.  He  was  charged  with  an 
offer  to  rent  the  commodious  residence  on  the 
Old  Road  for  the  use  of  the  President  and  his 
family.  The  patriotic  cordiality  with  which 
the  retired  officer  granted  the  request  did  not 
carry  him  beyond  the  bounds  of  careful  frugal- 
ity. He  made  minute  mention  in  his  expense- 
book  of  the  cost  of  sweeping  and  garnishing 
the  house  for  the  reception  of  the  distinguished 
guests,  also  of  "  cash  paid  for  cleaning  my 
house  and  putting  it  in  the  same  condition  the 


The  Morris  House  135 

President  received  it  in."  This  last  bill  was 
two  dollars  and  thirty  cents. 

From  this  account-book  we  learn  what  were 
the  expenses  of  transportation  of  Colonel 
Franks  and  family,  back  and  forth  to  Bethle- 
hem, and  what  was  paid  for  the  hired  furnished 
lodgings  in  the  mountain  village.  There  were 
lost  during  the  summer  of  exile  (presumably 
under  Lady  Washington's  administration), 
"  one  flat-iron,  value  is.,  one  large  fork,  four 
plates,  three  ducks,  four  fowls,"  and  consumed 
or  wasted  by  the  temporary  tenants,  "  one 
bushel  potatoes  and  one  cwt.  of  hay." 

Those  items  swelled  the  sum  expended  for 
removals  and  hire  of  Bethlehem  quarters  and 
the  rent  received  for  Germantown  premises  to 
$131.56. 

The  President,  his  wife,  and  their  adopted 
children,  George  Washington  Parke  Custis  and 
Nelly  Custis,  lived  in  health  and  peace  in  sub- 
urban quarters  during  the  summer  of  the  pesti- 
lence. The  boy  went  to  school  at  the  Old 
Academy.  The  grounds  of  the  school  ad- 
joined those  of  what  was  still  known  as  the 
Deshler  Place.  A  few  days  after  the  transfer 
of  the  Executive  party  from  town  to  country, 
a  group  of  boys  playing  on  the  pavement  in 


136      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

front  of  the  Academy  parted  to  left  and  right, 
cap  in  hand,  before  a  majestic  figure  that 
paused  at  the  foot  of  the  steps. 

"  Where  is  George  Washington  Parke  Cus- 
tis  ?  "  demanded  the  General. 

Charles  Wister,  a  Germantown  boy,  plucked 
up  courage  and  voice,  and  told  where  the  great 
man's  ward  might  be  found. 

Another  pupil  in  the  Academy,  Jesse  Wain, 
whose  home  was  in  Frankford,  accompanied 
Parke  Custis  from  school  one  afternoon,  and 
played  with  him  in  the  garden,  until  General 
Washington  came  out  of  the  back  door,  and 
bade  his  adopted  son  "  come  in  to  tea,  and 
bring  his  young  friend  with  him."  Nearly 
three  quarters  of  a  century  afterward,  an  old 
man  asked  permission,  upon  revisiting  Ger- 
mantown, to  go  into  the  tea-  or  breakfast-room, 
back  of  the  parlors  in  the  Morris  house,  and 
sitting  down  there  recalled  each  incident  of 
the  never-to-be-forgotten  "  afternoon  out." 
The  grave  kindness  of  the  head  of  the  house- 
hold, the  sweet  placidity  of  the  mistress,  and 
the  merry  school-fellow  whose  liking  had  won 
for  him  this  distinguished  honor, — this  is  the 
picture  for  which  .we  are  indebted  to  Mr. 
Wain's  reminiscences. 


The  Morris  House  137 

The  hegira  from  Philadelphia  must  have 
taken  place  early  in  the  spring,  for  Lady 
Washington  pleased  herself  and  interested  her 
neighbors,  by  raising  hyacinths  under  globes 
of  cut  glass.  There  were  six  of  these,  and 
upon  her  return  to  Philadelphia,  she  gave  them 
to  the  young  daughter  of  the  deceased  David 
Deshler,  to  whom  she  had  taken  an  especial 
liking.  A  fragment  of  the  glass  is  still  treas- 
ured by  a  descendant  of  Catherine  Deshler. 

The  occupation  of  the  Morris  House  by  the 
President  and  his  family  is  the  incident  in  the 
history  of  the  homestead  which  abides  most 
vividly  with  us  as  we  pass  from  one  to  another 
of  rooms  which  are  scarcely  altered  from  what 
they  were  in  his  day.  The  walls  are  wain- 
scoted up  to  the  ceiling  ;  the  central  hall ;  the 
fine  staircase  at  the  right  ;  the  hinges  mortised 
into  the  massive  front-door ;  the  wrought-iron 
latch,  eighteen  inches  long,  that  falls  into  a 
stout  hasp  ;  the  partitions  and  low  ceilings  of 
the  spacious  chambers, — are  the  same  as  when 
the  floors  echoed  to  the  tread  of  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief, and  ministers  of  state  and 
finance  discussed  the  weal  of  the  infant  nation 
with  him  who  will  never  cease  to  be  the  Na- 
tion's Hero. 


i38      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

We  linger  longest  in  the  tea-room,  which  is 
the  coziest  of  the  suite.  The  wide-throated 
chimney  is  built  diagonally  across  one  corner  ; 
the  fireplace  is  surrounded  by  tiles  of  exceed- 
ing beauty  and  great  age.     In  another  corner, 


THE  COZIEST  OF  THE  SUITE." 


on  the  same  side  of  the  room,  with  a  garden- 
ward  window  between  it  and  the  chimney,  is  a 
cupboard  which  was  also  here  in  1 793.  Behind 
the  glass  doors  of  this  cabinet  are  the  cup  and 
saucer  and  plate  of  old  India  blue  china,  which 


The  Morris  House  139 

were  used  on  the  evening  of  Jesse  Wain's 
visit,  with  other  choice  bits  of  bric-a-brac. 
The  rear  window,  opening  now  upon  a  small 
conservatory,  then  gave  upon  a  long  grape- 
arbor,  running  far  down  the  garden.  Between 
the  drawing-room  door  and  this  window — the 
fair,  extensive  pleasure-grounds,  sleeping  in  the 
afternoon  sunshine,  visible  to  all  at  the  table 
— the  Washingtons  took  their  "dish  of  tea" 
in  security,  shadowed  only  by  thoughts  of  the 
plague-stricken  city,  lying  so  near  as  to  sug- 
gest sadder  topics  than  the  sweet-hearted  host- 
ess would  willingly  introduce.  It  is  an  idyllic 
domestic  scene,  and  the  lovelier  for  the  cloudy 
background. 

The  "pitcher-portrait"  of  Washington  in 
the  possession  of  Mr.  Morris  was  presented  to 
his  great-grandfather,  Governor  Samuel  Mor- 
ris, captain,  during  the  War  of  the  Revolution, 
of  the  First  City  Troop.  These  pitchers  were 
made  in  France,  and  were  tokens  of  the  dis- 
tinguished esteem  of  the  General  for  those 
honored  as  the  recipients.  The  likeness  was 
considered  so  far  superior  to  any  other  extant 
at  that  time,  that  an  order  for  duplicates  was 
sent  to  Paris  when  the  first  supply  was  given 
away.     Unfortunately,  the  model  had  been  de- 


140      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

stroyed  after  the  original  requisition  was  filled, 
and  the  attempt  to  reproduce  the  design  was 
unsatisfactory  as  to  likeness  and  execution,  a 
circumstance  which  enhances  the  value  of  the 
originals. 

Mr.  Morris  justly  reckons  as  scarcely  second 
in  worth  to  this  beautiful  relic,  an  autograph 
letter  from  Washington  to  his  great-grand- 
father, Governor  Morris,  thanking  him  for  the 
gallant  service  rendered  in  the  War  of  Inde- 
pendence by  the  First  City  Troop. 


VII 

THE  SCHUYLER  AND  COLFAX  HOUSES, 
POMPTON,  NEW  JERSEY 

SIX  hundred  feet  above  the  sea  level; 
screened  by  two  mountain  ranges  from 
sea-fogs  and  shore  rawness  ;  watered  as  the 
garden  of  the  Lord  by  brooks,  brown  and 
brisk,  racing  down  from  the  hills — Pompton 
is  the  bonniest  nook  in   New  Jersey. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  said  of  the  plucky 
little  State,  that  the  trailing  arbutus,  fabled  to 
spring  from  the  blood  of  heroes,  grows  more 
luxuriantly  within  her  bounds  than  anywhere 
else.  Were  the  fantasy  aught  but  a  fable, 
Pompton  and  its  environs  would  be  overrun 
with  the  brave  daintiness  of  the  patriot's  flower. 

It  was  situated  on  the  King's  Highway,  be- 
tween New  York  and  Morristown,  and  the 
tide  of  war  ebbed  and   flowed  over  it  many 

hi 


H2       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

times  during  the  fateful  years  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. In  a  small  yellow  house  that  stood, 
within  the  last  ten  years,  upon  a  corner-lot 
equidistant  from  the  Pompton  station  of  the 
Montclair  and  Greenwood  Lake  Railway,  and 
that  of  the  New  York,  Susquehanna  and  West- 
ern, Washington  had  his  headquarters  during 
his  progresses  to  and  from  Morristown.  I 
have  talked  with  old  people  who  recollected 
seeing  him  stand  in  the  rude  porch,  reviewing 
the  dusty  lines  of  troops  as  they  filed  by. 
Hooks,  that  once  supported  muskets,  were  in 
the  ceiling  of  the  "  stoop,"  and  the  floor  of 
the  largest  room  was  indented  by  much  ground- 
ing of  arms. 

The  beetling  brow  of  the  loftiest  of  the  lines 
of  hills  interlocking  the  cup-like  valley,  was  the 
observatory  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  on  sev- 
eral occasions,  and  bears,  in  memory  of  the  ma- 
jestic Presence,  the  name  of  "  Federal   Rock." 

In  Lord  Stirling's  forge,  the  foundations  of 
which  are  yet  stanch  in  the  adjacent  Wanaque 
Valley,  was  welded  the  mighty  chain  stretched 
by  Washington  across  the  Hudson  to  prevent 
the  passage  of  the  British  ships,  some  links  of 
which  are  still  to  be  seen  on  the  parade-ground 
at  West  Point. 


Schuyler  and  Colfax  Houses      145 

Upon  another  of  the  heights  forming  the 
amphitheatre  in  which  are  the  villages  of  Pomp- 
ton  and  Ramapo  Lake,  several  companies  of 
Federal  soldiers  mutinied  in  the  winter  of 
1  778-9.  They  had  had  no  pay  for  months  ;  the 
weather  was  severe  ;  rations  were  poor  in  qual- 
ity and  scanty,  and  their  hearts  were  wrung 
by  tidings  of  almost  starving  families  in  their 
distant  homes.  It  was  resolved  to  desert  the 
bleak  fastness,  disband,  and  return  to  their 
wives  and  children.  News  of  the  revolt  was 
sent  to  Washington  at  Morristown.  He  dis- 
patched the  American  General  Howe,  with  a 
body  of  troops,  to  quell  it.  The  insurgents 
were  surprised  and  surrounded,  and  yielded 
without  bloodshed  to  the  superior  force.  A 
court-martial  was  held — "  standing  on  the 
snow,"  says  the  chronicle  with  unconscious 
pathos — and  two  of  the  ring-leaders  were  sen- 
tenced to  be  shot  by  their  comrades  and  fellow- 
offenders.  The  squad  detailed  for  the  purpose 
vainly  protested,  with  tears,  against  the  cruel 
office.  The  blindfolded  leaders  were  buried 
where  they  fell.  Their  graves  are  pointed  out 
to  the  visitor  who  climbs  to  the  site  of  the 
forest-camp.  Cellars  lined  with  stone,  shelv- 
ing rocks  blackened  and  seamed  on  the  under 


146      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

side  by  smoke  and  fire,  and  the  outlines  of 
huts  that  were  built  up  with  loose  stones, — 
are  vestiges  of  that  bitter  winter  and  the 
tragic  culmination  of  the  woes  of  the  des- 
perate soldiery. 

Another  encampment  was  in  Pompton  town- 
ship, within  sight  of  that  on  the  mountain-side, 
and  so  much  more  kindly  planned  as  to  con- 
venience and  comfort  that  the  contrast  may 
have  augmented  the  discontent  of  the  mutinous- 
band.  For  two  winters,  part  of  a  regiment  of 
American  troops  occupied  a  gentle  slope  with 
a  southern  exposure,  on  the  bank  of  the 
Ramapo  River.  A  virgin  forest  kept  off  north 
and  east  winds,  and  the  camp  was  within  less 
than  half  a  mile  of  the  main  road.  Soon  after 
peace  was  declared,  a  great  rock  in  the  middle 
of  the  river  was  used  as  a  foundation  for  a 
dam  that  widened  the  stream  into  a  lake.  A 
fall  of  thirty  feet  supplies  a  picturesque  feature 
to  the  landscape,  and  valuable  water-power  for 
the  Pompton  Steel  and  Iron  Works  at  the 
foot  of  the  hill.  Sunnybank,  the  summer  cot- 
tage of  Rev.  Dr.  Terhune,  is  built  upon  the 
pleasant  camping-ground  aforesaid.  In  clear* 
ing  the  wooded  slope,  remains  of  stockaded  huts 
were  unearthed,  with  bullets,   flints,  gunlocks, 


Schuyler  and  Colfax  Houses      149 

and,  in  a  bed  of  charcoal  left  by  a  camp-fire,  a 
sword  of  British  workmanship,  in  perfect  pres- 
ervation. The  royal  arms  of  England  are 
etched  upon  the  blade  ;  on  the  hilt,  scratched 
rudely  as  with  a  nail,  or  knife-point,  are  the 
initials  "E.L."  The  steel  is  encrusted  with 
rust-gouts  that  will  not  out.  Who,  of  the 
miserably  equipped  rebel  soldiery,  could  afford 
to  lose  from  his  living  hand  a  weapon  so  good 
and  true  ? 

The  steeper  hill  across  the  lake,  on  the 
lower  slopes  and  at  the  base  of  which  nestle  the 
villas  and  cottages  of  "  summer  folk"  from  the 
metropolis,  took  the  name  of  "  Barrack  Hill" 
from  the  officers'  quarters  overlooking  the  camp. 

The  Marquis  de  Chastelleux,  from  whose 
Travels  in  North  America  quotation  has  al- 
ready been  made  in  these  pages,  writes  of 
this  region  in  1780 : 

"  Approaching  Pompton  I  was  astonished  at 
the  degree  of  perfection  to  which  agriculture 
is  carried."  He  mentions  as  especially  well- 
cultivated  and  fertile  the  lands  of  "  the  Mande- 
ville  brothers,1  whose  father  was  a  Dutchman 
and  cleared  the  farms  his  sons  now  till." 

1  A  daughter  of  one  of  the  Mandeville  brothers  married  Dr.  William 
Washington  Colfax. 


150      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

44  Being  very  dark,  it  was  not  without  diffi- 
culty that   I   passed  two  or  three  rivulets,  on 
very  small  bridges,"  establishes  the   trend  of 
the  road  that  landed  him  that  night  at  Court- 
heath's  Tavern  (on  the  site  of  which  a  time- 
battered  hostelry  still  stands).     The  landlord, 
a  young  fellow  of  four-and-twenty,  complained 
bitterly  that  he  was  obliged  to  live  in  this  out- 
of-the-way    place.      "  He    has    two    handsome 
sisters,  well-dressed  girls  who  wait  on  travel- 
lers with  grace   and  coquetry,"  is  a  sly  touch 
worthy  of  the  writer's  nationality.      He  atones 
for  it  by  honest  surprise  at  seeing  upon  a  great 
table  in  the  parlor  Milton,  Addison,  Richard- 
son, and  other  authors  of  note.     "  The  cellar 
was  not  so  well  stocked  as  the  library."      He 
could  "get   nothing  but   vile   cider-brandy  of 
which  he   must   make  grog."     The  bill  for  a 
night's  lodging  and  food  for  himself,  his  ser- 
vants, and  horses,  was  sixteen  dollars. 

From  this  showing,  we  infer  that  Dutch 
intelligence  and  integrity  were  distanced  by 
Dutch  enterprise  even  in  the  wilderness.  He 
recounts,  as  we  might  tell  of  a  casual  encounter 
with  a  neighbor,  that,  two  days  later,  he  met 
General  and  Lady  Washington  on  the  Morris- 
town  road,   travelling  in  their  post-chaise,  in 


Schuyler  and  Colfax  Houses      151 

which  roomy  conveyance  they  insisted  he 
should  take  a  seat. 

There  were  skirmishes,  many  and  bloody, 
upon  these  beautiful  hills.  An  encounter  in 
the  Morristown  Road  on  Pompton  Plains  at- 
tained the  dignity  of  a .  battle,  and  the  slain 
were  buried  in  the  graveyard  of  the  wayside 
church.  In  the  garden  behind  Washington's 
headquarters,  was  dug  up  in  1889,  a  solid  silver 
spur  that  may  have  clamped  the  august  heel 
of  the  Nation's  hero.  The  flat  at  the  left  of 
the  Sunnybank  orchard  was  paved  with  thou- 
sands of  flat  stones  for  the  convenience  of  tak- 
ing horses  and  wagons  to  the  water's  edge. 
These  were  removed  a  few  years  ago.  Among 
the  matted  roots  beneath  them  was  found,  at 
one  spot,  a  bed  of  partially  fashioned  arrow- 
heads, and,  nearer  the  woods,  a  grave,  with 
roughly  hewn  stones  at  head  and  foot — per- 
haps the  last  resting-place  of  a  sachem  of  the 
once  .powerful  tribe  of  Pompiton  Indians, — 
perhaps  of  "  E.  L."     Who  knows  ? 

Both  the  camping-grounds  I  have  mentioned, 
and  five  thousand  five  hundred  acres  besides 
of  mountain  and  plain,  were  deeded  by  royal 
letters  of  patent  to  Arent  Schuyler  in  1695. 
The  homestead  founded  by  him  stands  diago- 


152       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

nally  across  the  lake  from  Sunnybank,  in  full 
sight,  although  three  quarters  of  a  mile  away. 
A  rampart  of  mountains  defends  it  from  the 
blasts  which  rush  down  the  northern  gorge, 
through  which,  from  the  crest  of  Barrack  Hill, 
the  naked  eye  can  trace  on  a  clear  day  the 
outline  of  Old  Cro'  Nest,  opposite  West  Point. 
Philip  Petersen  Schuyler,  the  founder  of  the 

large  and  influ- 
ential family  in 
America  bearing 
the  name,  emi- 
grated from  Am- 
sterdam, Holland, 
in  1650,  and  settled 
in  Albany  (then 
Beverwyck). 

This  is  his  entry 
in  the  family  Bible 
of  an  event  which 
occurred  the  same 
year. 

14  In  the  year  of  our  Lord  1650,  the  12  de- 
cember,  Have  I,  Philip  Peterse  Schuyler  from 
Amsterdam,  old  about  2  "  (illegible)  "  years 
married  for  my  wife  Margritta  van  Slichten- 
horst,  born  at  Nykerck  old  22  years  may  the 


'  &fl^J  C  OM  M  IS  SARI  s  ^    *"  *V  M-k 


^£§?s 


SCHUYLER  COAT-OF-ARMS. 


Schuyler  and  Colfax  Houses      153 

good  god  grant  us  a  long  and  peaceful  life  to 
our  salvation  Amen." 

His  life  was  neither  long  nor  peaceful.  His 
decease,  jotted  down  in  the  same  Bible  by  the 
hand  of  his  wife,  took  place  when  he  was  less 
than  sixty  years  old.  The  services  rendered 
city,  State,  and  church  in  his  thirty  years'  resi- 
dence in  the  land  of  his  adoption,  his  courage, 
steadfastness  and  energy,  make  his  a  marked 
name  in  those  early  annals.  He  bore  the  title 
of  "  Captain  "  at  his  death,  and  is  mentioned 
in  contemporary  documents  as  "  Commissioner 
of  Justice  in  Albany." 

From,  the  eight  children  who  survived  him 
sprang  such  noble  branches  as  the  Van  Cort- 
landts,  Van  Rensselaers,  Vefplancks,  and  Liv- 
ingstons. His  eldest  son,  Peter,  was  the  first 
Mayor  of  Albany,  and  in  1689,  Commandant 
of  Fort  Orange  in  that  city. 

Johannes,  another  son,  we  learn  from  a  fam- 
ily MS.  embrowned  and  blotched  by  time, 

"Was  Captain  at  22,  and  in  1690  led  a  Company  of 
29  Christians  and  120  Savages,  as  far  as  La  Praise,  in 
Canada,  near  Montreal,  where  he  took  19  Prisoners  and 
destroyed  for  the  enemies  150  head  of  cattle,  and  subse- 
quently, after  an  absence  of  17  days,  returned  in  safety 
to   Albany.      He  is  said    to   have  had  great  influence 


154      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

with  the  Indians  and  was  the  grandfather  of  General 
Philip  Schuyler,  one  of  the  noted  chieftains  of  the  Revo- 
lution." 

The  birth  of  Arent  Schuyler  is  duly  entered 
in  the  Bible  thus  : 

"  1662,  the  25  June  is  born  our  fourth  son 
named  Arent  van  Schuyler  may  the  Lord  God 
let  him  grow  up  in  virtues  to  his  Salvation 
Amen. 

The  father  interpolated  the  "van"  in  the 
names  of  his  children  until  1666.  Philip,  Jo- 
hannes, and  Margritta  are  written  down  simply, 
"  Schuyler." 

The  wife  of  the  first  Philip  and  for  twenty- 
eight  years  his  loyal  relict,  was  one  of  the  fa- 
mous women  of  the  day.  She  had  sole  control 
of  her  husband's  large  estate  and  managed  it 
ably. 

An  amusing  bit  of  testimony  to  her  maternal 
devotion  is  given  in  a  letter  written  by  the  ob- 
noxious Leisler  to  the  three  commissioners 
sent  by  him  to  Albany  to  assume  control  of 
municipal  and  colonial  affairs  there.  Peter 
Schuyler  was  then  Mayor.  The  usurper  of 
the  Lieutenant-Governorship  writes  to  his 
agents  of  a  tale  "  that  ye  Widow  Schuyler 
beat  Captain  Milborne,  and  that  you  all  three 


Schuyler  and  Colfax  Houses      155 

were  forced  to  fly  out  of  ye  towne  and  were 
gone  to  Esopus,  and  Peter  Schuyler  was  in  ye 
fort." 

"  It  was  mere  rumor,"  comments  a  family 
record,  "  but  it  proved  she  was  a  woman  of 
spirit  and  resolution,  more,  that  her  influence 
was  a  power  which  her  enemies  feared." 

This  was  in  1690.  Six  years  earlier,  her  son 
Arent  (signifying  "  eagle ")  bought  a  house 
from  his  thrift-loving  mother,  to  be  paid  for  in 
peltry,  in  two  instalments  of  a  hundred  beavers 
each,  hung  a  live  eagle  in  a  cage  on  the  outer 
wall  in  lieu  of  a  door-plate,  married,  and  went 
to  housekeeping  with  Jenneke  Teller. 

In  imitation  of  the  will  made  by  Philip 
and  Margritta  Schuyler — the  provisions  of 
which  were  conscientiously  carried  out  by  the 
widow, — Arent  and  his  wife,  soon  after  their 
marriage,  united  in  a  testament  which  left  the 
survivor  sole  legatee  of  "all  the  estate  and 
personal  property  ...  all  and  everything 
which  they  now  possess  (may  he  or  she  re- 
marry or  not)  without  being  held  to  pay  over 
to  the  parents  or  friends  or  anybody  else,  even 
a  stiver's  worth." 

In  1690,  Arent  Schuyler  joined  a  party  sent 
under   Captain    Abraham   Schuyler    to   watch 


156      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

the  French  near  Crown  Point.  While  on  this 
duty,  Arent  volunteered  to  lead  into  Canada 
a  company  of  eight  Indian  scouts,  himself 
being  the  only  white  man.  The  expedition 
returned  in  safety,  having  made  thorough  re- 
connoissances,  killed  two  French  pickets  and 
captured  one.  The  enterprise  gained  for  him 
much  credit  and  a  captaincy.  His  familiarity 
with  Indian  dialects  caused  him  to  be  chosen 
as  ambassador,  on  divers  occasions,  to  hostile 
and  friendly  tribes.  His  proven  courage  and 
his  diplomacy  were  not  more  notable  than  the 
detailed  exactness  of  his  monetary  accounts 
with  the  government.  Not  an  item  of  horse- 
hire  ;  of  Holland  shirts  furnished  to  chiefs  ;  of 
crackers,  peas  and  ferriage,  was  omitted  from 
the  bills  rendered  by  shrewd  Widow  Schuyler's 
fourth  son. 

Arent  Schuyler  removed  to  what  one  kins- 
man biographer  calls  "  the  wilds  of  New  Jer- 
sey "  between  1  701  and  1  706.  The  joint  will  of 
himself  and  bride  was,  of  course,  a  reciprocal 
affair,  with  equal  risks  on  both  sides,  but  the 
innings  remained  with  the  always  lucky  hus- 
band. He  fell  heir  to  every  stiver  and  stitch 
of  Jenneke  Teller's  share  of  the  property  in 
1 700,  and  married  Swantie  Dyckhuyse  in  1  702, 


Schuyler  and  Colfax  Houses      157 

In  1  710,  he  bought  a  plantation  on  the;  Passaic 
River  near  Newark.  Just  as  he  was  beginning 
to  fear  that  the  lands  were  unproductive,  and 
to  meditate  a  speedy  sale,  a  negro  slave  dis- 
covered a  copper  mine  which  established  his 
master's  fortune  beyond  the  reach  of  a  turn  of 
fate. 

Philip,  the  eldest  son  of  Arent  the  Lucky, 
was  left  upon  the  patrimonial  acres  at  Pomp- 
ton  when  his  father  transferred  his  residence 
to  Belleville,  New  Jersey.  He  was  a  man  of 
note  among  his  neighbors,  possessing  much  of 
the  thrift  and  industry  belonging  to  the  blood. 
He  represented  Passaic  County  in  the  Legis- 
lature for  several  years. 

His  son,  Arent  (2),  added  to  the  estate  the 
farm  bought  in  1739  from  Hendrick  Garritse 
Van  Wagenen,  on  which  the  homestead 
stands.  This  Arent,  with  his  son  Adoniah, 
occupied  it  during  the  Revolution,  and  in  a 
peaceful  old  age  related  many  and  strange 
tales  of  that  troublous  era. 

A  French  soldier,  ill  with  fever,  was  brought 
to  Mr.  Schuyler's  hospitable  door  from  the 
camp  across  the  river,  taken  in  and  nursed  by 
the  family  and  servants.  His  disease  proved 
to    be   smallpox   of   which    he   died.     A    low 


i58      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

mound  in  the  orchard  shows  where  he  was 
buried.  The  family  influence  with  the  Indians, 
of  whom  there  were  many  in  the  nearest 
mountains,  was  transmitted  from  generation 
to  generation.  Adoniah,  when  a  boy,  talked 
with  them  in  their  own  language,  employed, 
when  grown,  Indian  men  on  the  farm,  and 
squaws  in  the  house.  Indian  boys  and  girls 
played  freely  about  the  doors  with  the  children 
of  the  second  Arent. 

While  the  conflicting  armies  were  surging 
back  and  forth  over  the  Debatable  Ground  of 
the  Ramapo  Valley,  Arent  Schuyler  called  in 
cattle  and  horses  every  night,  and  sent  them 
into  the  friendly  mountains  at  the  rear  of  his 
house,  under  the  care  of  trustworthy  laborers. 
Provisions  were  secreted  ingeniously,  and 
crops  put  into  the  ground  with  agonizing 
misgivings  as  to  who  would  reap  and  consume 
them, 

The  dwelling  has  been  twice  remodelled  in 
this  century.  It  is  a  substantial  stone  struc- 
ture, with  outlying  barns  larger  than  itself. 
The  walls  are  very  thick  and  an  air  of  restful 
comfort  pervades  the  premises.  Peacocks 
strut,  and  guinea-fowls  clack  noisily  where 
Indian  children  played  with  Philip  Schuyler's 


Schuyler  and  Colfax  Houses      161 

grandsons.  Plough  and  hoe  still  bring  up 
arrowheads  in  the  long-cultivated  fields.  The 
ground  would  seem  to  have  been  sown  with 
them  as  with  grain. 

Mr.  Cornelius  Schuyler,  an  honored  citizen 
of  Pompton,  and  the  last  in  the  direct  male 
line  represented  by  Arent  (i),  Philip,  Arent 
(2)  and  Adoniah,  died  Sept.  14,  1868,  in  his 
seventy-fifth  year.  Mrs.  Williams,  his  married 
daughter,  and  her  husband,  Dr.  Williams,  dwell 
in  the  quiet  spaciousness  of  the  old  house. 

Of  the  many  thousand  Pompton  acres  owned 
by  the  race  that  knew  so  well  how  to  fight  and 
to  traffic,  only  the  extensive  home-tract  remains 
to  those  of  the  blood  and  lineage.  Of  the 
homes  inherited  and  made  for  themselves  by 
the  children  of  the  second  Philip  Schuyler,  all 
but  two  have  passed  into  other  hands. 

Major  Anthony  Brockholls,  sometime  Gov- 
ernor of  the  Province  of  New  York,  and  at 
a  later  day  Mayor  of  New  York  City,  was  the 
friend  of  Arent  (1)  Schuyler  and  a  copartner 
in  speculation  in  New  Jersey  lands. 

"  These  gentlemen  bought  of  the  Indians  nearly  all 
the  land  now  comprised  in  Wayne  Township,  and  ac- 
quired the  title  from  some  New  Jersey  proprietaries  on 
November  nth,  1695.     In  the   same  year  they  erected 


162      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

homesteads  within  a  few  hundred  yards  of  one  another. 
The  house  built  by  Schuyler  stands  yet  and  is  occupied 
by  William  Colfax,  one  of  his  descendants.  That  built 
by  Brockholls  has  disappeared  and  on  the  site  is  one 
more  modern,  occupied  by  the  family  of  the  late  Major 
W.  W.  Colfax,  another  offshoot  of  the  Schuyler-Colfax 
stock." 

This  extract  is  from  a  paper  kindly  given  to 
me  by  Dr.  William  Schuyler  Colfax  of  Pomp- 
ton,  who  is  himself  a  lineal  descendant  of 
Arent  (i)  Schuyler.  From  the  same  source 
we  learn  that  the  "  second  settlement  in  what 
is  now  Passaic  County  was  made  by  Arent 
Schuyler  and  Anthony  Brockholls  in  1694- 
1695." 

The  old  house  was,  then,  Schuyler's  home 
between  1  700  and  the  date  of  his  removal  to 
Belleville,  and  has  been  in  the  family  quite  as 
long  as  the  larger  building  nearly  a  mile  away 
and  on  the  other  side  of  the  lake. 

Philip  Schuyler,  the  son  of  the  first  Arent, 
had  eleven  children  besides  the  namesake  son 
who  inherited  the  Van  Wagenen  farm  along 
with  others.  Of  the  dozen,  nine  grew  to  man's 
and  woman's  estate.  Especial  good  fortune 
seems  to  have  followed  Arent's  name  and  line, 
for  we  find  from  Dr.  Colfax's  MS.  that  Arent's 


Schuyler  and  Colfax  Houses      163 

son  Caspar — or  Casparus,  as  another  record 
has  it — inherited  a  large  estate  at  his  father's 
death.  Furthermore,  that  Caspar  "  had  in 
some  manner  acquired  the  adjoining  Brockholls 
lands." 

He  had  but  one  child, — 

"  One  fair  daughter  and  no  more, 
The  which  he  loved  passing  well," — 

if  unstinted  indulgence  while  he  lived,  and  the 
bequest  to  her,  in  dying,  of  all  his  worldly 
goods,  were  proofs  of  parental  affection.  The 
beautiful  Ester — or  Hester — familiarly  known 
to  kindred  and  neighbor  as  "  Miss  Hetty," 
was  in  the  fifth  generation  from  "ye  Widow 
Schuyler "  who  beat  and  chased  the  three 
Royal  Commissioners  sent  to  eject  her  son 
Peter  from  the  Mayoralty.  The  family 
u  spirit  and  resolution  "  dryly  commended  by 
the  chronicler  of  the  affair,  had  not  lost 
strength  with  the  passage  of  years.  If  the 
Widow  Schuyler's  spirit  were  a  home-brew  of 
sparkling  cider,  her  very-great-granddaughter's 
was  the  same  beverage  grown  "  hard "  with 
the  keeping.  Her  beauty  and  her  fortune 
attracted  a  swarm  of  beaux,  and  her  successes 
probably   kept   her    in  a  good   humor  in    her 


164      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

visitors'  sight.  While  Washington  was  en- 
camped at  Towowa,  seven  miles  away,  he  was 
on  several  occasions  her  most  honored  guest. 
We  may  be  sure  that  the  bravest  of  the  silks 
and  satins — that,  her  neighbors  said,  made  it 
unnecessary  for  them  to  look  around  to  see 
who  was  rustling  up  the  aisle  of  the  old  colonial 
church  (still  standing) — were  donned  when  the 
General  and  staff  were  expected  to  dinner, 
and  that  the  youthful  hostess  made  a  bonny 
picture  as  she  courtesied  in  the  Dutch  door- 
way in  acknowledgment  of  his  magnificent 
salutation. 

In  the  train  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  was 
a  handsome  youth  who,  although  but  nineteen 
years  of  age,  was  second-lieutenant  of  Wash- 
ington's Life-Guard.  He  came  of  a  French 
family  that  had  settled  in  Wethersfield,  Conn., 
in  1 65 1.  It  may  have  been  the  dash  and 
vivacity  which  went  with  his  blood  that  com- 
mended him  to  Miss  Hetty's  favor.  His 
rivals  included  others  of  the  General's  staff. 
When  the  home-brew  was  the  sharper  for  ten 
or  twelve  years  of  married  life,  she  used  to 
bemoan  herself  that  "she  had  had  her  pick  of 
nine,  and  had  chosen  the  worst  of  the  lot." 

"  After  a  brief  and  vigorous  wooing,  Lieu- 


Schuyler  and  Colfax  Houses      165 

tenant  Colfax  became  engaged  to  Ester,  and 
married  her  at  the  close  of  the  war." 

He  was  Captain  of  the  Life-Guard  by  now, 
and  had  a  reputation  for  bravery  that  should 
have  tempered  with   justice  the  tart  training 
to  which   the    spoiled    beauty    subjected    him 
from  an  early  period  of  their  joint,  but  never 
united,  lives.     Even  after  he  became  General 
Colfax,  and  had  won  new  laurels  in  the  War  of 
181 2,  we  hear  of  her  driving  in  an  open  ba- 
rouche   over    the   short    mile   separating  her 
homestead  from  the  Reformed  Dutch  Church, 
the  General  riding  alongside,  and  on  the  foot- 
board behind  two  colored  pages,   the  one  to 
carry  after  her  to  the  Schuyler  pew  footstool 
and  fan  in  summer,  or  a  warming-pan  in  win- 
ter, the  other  to  bear  her  train  up  the  aisle. 
Her  husband  was  an  adjunct  to  the  state  she 
kept  up  to  the  day  of  her  demise,  making  her 
boast,  within    a   few  weeks  of  that  desirable 
event,  that  she   had    never  combed  her  own 
hair  or  put  on  her  own  shoes  and  stockings. 
Dutch   father  and    French    husband  seem  to 
have  been  on  a  par  in  the  worse  than  folly  of 
humoring  caprices  which  waxed   with    indul- 
gence  into   absurdities   that   are   among   the 
most   amusing   of   village   tales.     She   would 


1 66      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

drink  no  water  except  such  as  was  brought 
fresh  from  a  well  five  hundred  yards  distant 
from  the  house,  and  burned  none  except  hick- 
ory wood.  If  this  were  not  forthcoming  at 
her  call  she  would  toss  into  the  fire  whatever 
lay  nearest  her  hand,  were  it  gown,  or  shawl, 
or  silken  scarf.  She  would  not  allow  a  black 
beast  or  fowl  to  live  upon  the  place,  and  one. 
of  the  fiercest  quarrels  between  the  ill-mated 
pair  was  because  her  husband  had  suffered 
her  to  eat  beef  bought  of  a  neighbor  who  had 
slaughtered  a  black  cow.  When  he  offended 
her  beyond  the'  possibility  of  forgiveness  by 
selling  a  tract  of  land  without  her  permission, 
she  retired  loftily  to  her  chamber,  and  did  not 
emerge  from  the  seclusion  for  ten  years. 
When  the  time  she  had  set  for  herself  and  to 
him  was  up,  she  came  forth,  richly  dressed, 
ordered  her  carriage,  and  drove  to  church  as 
if  nothing  had  happened. 

With  all  her  intolerable  whims,  she  retained 
to  the  last  her  shrewd  intelligence  and  ready 
wit,  and,  when  she  willed  to  be  pleasing,  her 
captivating  manner.  The  six  children  born 
to  her  loved  her  in  spite  of  the  flurries  and 
tempests  of  a  temper  they  and  their  father 
understood,   if  nobody  else    entered    into  the 


Schuyler  and  Colfax  Houses      169 

comprehension  thereof.  She  was  one  of  the 
"  characters  "  of  the  times  and  region,  and  her 
story  gives  a  flavor  of  peppery  romance  to  the 
long,  low,  hip-roofed  house.  Each  of  the 
three  sons  who  attained  manhood  was  a  citi- 
zen of  more  than  ordinary  intelligence  and 
prominence.  Schuyler,  the  eldest,  became 
the  father  of  a  Vice-President  of  the  United 
States  :  William  Washington,  named  for  his 
father  and  his  father's  beloved  Chief,  was  an 
able  and  successful  physician,  and  one  of  the 
celebrities  of  the  township.  His  ban  mots  are 
still  retailed  by  his  old  acquaintances  and 
neighbors.  Throughout  his  life  he  was  a 
stubborn  Democrat,  and  a  friend,  one  day  in 
the  summer  of  1868,  showed  him  with  mis- 
chievous satisfaction  the  newspaper  announce- 
ment of  the  nomination  of  Grant  and  Colfax. 
The  doctor  read  the  article  through  without 
the  change  of  a  muscle. 

"  That  ticket,"  he  said  then,  quietly,  "  is  like  a 
kangaroo.     All  the  strength  is  in  the  hind  legs." 

George,  the  third  son,  built  a  homestead 
upon  the'  foundation  of  the  Brockholl's  house. 
It  is  still  occupied  by  his  descendants. 

The  "  old  place "  is  tenanted  by  the  only 
son  of  Dr.  William  Washington  Colfax. 


170      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

The  fourth  William,  to  whom  I  am  in- 
debted for  much  interesting  information 
respecting  the  family,  has  in  his  possession 
a  miniature  of  General — then  Lieutenant — 
Colfax,  which  the  enamored  young  officer 
caused  to  be  painted  for  the  fair  and  spicy 
Hetty  during  their  engagement ;  also  a  pair 
of  beautifully  mounted  pistols  made  by  Thone 
of  Amsterdam.  They  were  given  to  his  favor- 
ite lieutenant  by  Washington  at  the  close  of 
the  war.  A  great-granddaughter  treasures 
as  an  odd  but  precious  relic,  a  man's  night- 
cap made  by  Lady  Washington  and  presented 
to  Captain  Colfax  with  her  own  hands.  The 
house  contains  tables,  chairs,  and  other  ancient 
furniture  antedating  the  stirring  Revolution- 
ary days  that  brought  the  boy-warrior  to  the 
arms— and  tongue — of  his  imperious  bride. 


VIII 


THE  VAN  CORTLANDT  MANOR-HOUSE 


OLAF  Steven se  Van  Cortland t, 
a  soldier  in  the  Dutch  West  Indian  serv- 
ice, accompanied  William  Kieft  to  America  in 
1638. 

He  came  of  a  noble  French  family  (Cour- 
land)  long -resident  in 
Holland.  In  1648,  he  left 
the  service  of  the  com- 
pany, and  a  year  later 
his  signature  appeared 
among  those  of  the 
"Nine  Men"  who  pre- 
sented to  the  West  In- 
dian Co.  a  protest  against 
the  maladministration  of 
Kieft  and  Stuyvesant.  In  1654,  he  was  a 
Commissioner  from  New  Amsterdam  to  settle 

171 


VAN  CORTLANDT  COAT-OF-ARMS. 

MOTTO,         VIRTUS   SIBI    MUNUS." 


172      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

difficulties  with  the  Indians  after  the  Esopus 
massacre. 

He  was,  also,  an  Elder  in  the  Reformed 
Dutch  Church  of  which  "  Everardus  Bogardus, 
Dominie  of  New  Amsterdam,"  was  the  spirit- 
ual leader.  The  worthy  pastor  had  wedded, 
in  1638;  the  "Widow  Ians,"  otherwise  Anneke 
Jansen,  who  brought  with  her  to  her  new  hus- 
band's abode  the  five  children  she  had  borne 
to  her  first  husband.  It  was  considered  that 
the  clergyman  had  made  an  ineligible  match, 
the  bride  having  no  dowry  save  "  a  few  acres 
of  wild  land."  The  undesirable  estate,  regis- 
tered after  her  second  marriage,  as  "  The 
Dominie's  Bouwerie,"  is  now  the  property  of 
Trinity  Church  Corporation  in  New  York 
City.  ' 

Pastor  and  Elder  maintained  amicable  rela- 
tions toward  one  another  throughout  the 
Reverend  Everardus's  incumbency,  except  on 
one  occasion  when  the  minister  was  hurried, 
in  the  heat  of  debate,  into  the  utterance  of  a 
remark  that  reflected  upon  his  parishioner's 
integrity.  He  was  compelled,  in  a  meeting 
of  Consistory,  to  retract  his  words,  whereupon 
Olaf  Van  Cortlandt — whom  a  contemporary 
describes  as  "  without  mistake  a  noble  man" — 


Van  Cortlandt  Manor-House      173 

frankly  forgave  the  offender,  and  their  friend- 
ship was  fully  restored. 

The  pastor  was  drowned  in  Bristol  Channel 
in  1647,  and  the  doubly  widowed  Anneke  re- 
sumed the  management  of  the  "  Bouwerie." 

"  Old  Burgomaster  Van  Cortlandt "  was  one 
of  the  six  chief  townsmen  who  advised  and 
conducted  a  peaceful  capitulation  to  the  Eng- 
lish squadron  that  summoned  the  settlement 
on  "  the  Island  of  Manhattoes  "  to  surrender. 
In  the  political  see-saw  of  the  ensuing  decade, 
the  wise  Hollander  kept  his  seat  on  the  safe 
end  of  the  plank.  We  find  him  in  England, 
lading  governmental  ships  under  commission 
of  Charles  II.  ;  investigating  Lovelace's  un- 
settled accounts  when  the  latter  was  deposed 
by  the  reinstated  Dutch  masters,  and  he  was 
one  of  Andros's  council  after  the  international 
episode  was  settled  by  the  treaty  of  Westmin- 
ster. In  all  this,  he  so  cleverly  improved 
cloudy  as  well  as  shining  hours  that  he  had 
by  1674  amassed  a  fortune  of  45,000  guilders 
and  much  real  estate.  H  e  was  by  now  the  happy 
husband  of  Annetje  Loockermans,  who,  like 
himself,  was  born  in  Holland.    He  died  in  1683. 

"  A  worthy  citizen,  and  most  liberal  in  his 
charities,"  says  an  old  chronicle. 


174      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

His  widow  survived  him  but  a  twelvemonth. 
Her  epitaph,  penned  by  the  pastor  of  the 
venerable  couple,  asserts  that  she 

"...     after  Cortlandt's  death  no  rest  possessed, 
And  sought  no  other  rest  than  soon  to  rest  beside  him. 
He  died.  She  lived  and  died.  Both  now  in  Abram  rest." 

— tautological  testimony  which,  if  trustworthy, 
implies  wifely  devotion  and  a  common  Chris- 
tian faith. 

Thus  runs  in  brief  the  opening  chapter  in 
the  American  history  of  a  family  than  which 
none  has  borne  a  more  conspicuous  and  hon- 
orable part  in  the  history  of  New  York. 
Compelled  by  the  stringency  of  space  (or  the 
lack  of  it)  to  restrict  myself  to  the  barest  out- 
line of  an  eventful  history,  I  pass  on  to  the 
threshold  of  the  picturesque  Manor-House, 
built  in  1 68 1  upon  the  Croton  River  then 
"  Kightewank  Creek." 

The  Manor  of  Van  Cortlandt  was  "  erected  " 
in  1697,  with  especial  privileges  pertaining 
thereto  besides  the  usual  rights  of  "  Court- 
Baron,  Court-Leet,  etc."  Under  this  title 
were  collected  lands  accumulated  during  nearly 
thirty  years  by  Stephanus  Van  Cortlandt, 
eldest  son  of  the  emigrant  Olaf.     At  thirty- 


Van  Cortlandt  Manor-House      175 

four  he  was  the  first  American  Mayor  of  New 
York,  and  appointed  First  Judge  in  Admiralty 
by  Sir  Edmund  Andros. 

So  trusted  was  he  by  the  English  governors 
that  English-born  merchants  uttered  a  formal 
complaint  against  patronage  bestowed  upon 
"  a  Dutchman  while  the  English  had  no 
chance." 

Office  was  heaped  upon  office  until  in  num- 
ber and  importance  they  surpassed  those  held 
by  his  doughty  brother-in-law,  Robert  Living- 
ston. The  two  Manorial  Lords  married  sis- 
ters, the  daughters  of  Philip  Petersen  Schuyler 
of  Albany.  The  cares  of  political  life,  business 
cares  and  responsibilities,  perhaps  the  chafe 
of  the  high-strung  ambitious  spirit  within  a 
not-robust  body,  made  his  days  briefer  than 
those  of  his  parents.  He  survived  the  creation 
of  his  Manor  less  than  four  years,  dying  in 
1 700,  at  the  comparatively  early  age  of  fifty- 
seven. 

Eleven,  out  of  fourteen,  children  outlived 
him.  Verplanck,  Bayard,  de  Lancey,  Van 
Schuyler, — are  some  of  the  notable  names 
joined  in  marriage  with  those  of  his  sons  and 
daughters. 

His    son    Philip  (1)  married  Catherine   de 


176       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

Peyster,  "  was  an  eminent  merchant  in  posses- 
sion of  good  estate,"  and  one  of  His  Majesty's 
Council  in  1 73 1.  Dying  in  1747,  his  estate 
was  divided  among  his  four  sons. 

To  Pierre  (1)  although  the  youngest,  was 
devised  the  Manor- House.  His  wife  was  his 
second  cousin,  Joanna  Livingston,  a  grandchild 
of  Robert. 

"  With  their  eldest  born,  Philip  Van  Cort- 
landt,  they  left  New  York  for  Croton  River, 
and  here  all  the  succeeding  children  were  born. 
For  a  time  all  passed  peacefully  ;  Pierre  pur- 
suing the  avocations  of  a  country  gentleman  of 
that  day,  busying  himself  with  his  farm  and  his 
mills." 

The  Manor-House,  built  as  a  fort  station 
by  Stephanus  Van  Cortlandt,  contained,  origi- 
nally, but  eight  rooms,  and  was  forty  feet 
long  by  thirty-three  wide.  It  was  of  Nyack 
red  freestone,  and  the  solid  masonry  of  the 
walls  was  pierced  with  loopholes  for  de- 
fense against  savage  visitors.  Within  a  few 
rods  was  the  Ferry-house,  constructed  of  brick 
and  wood.  As  the  dangers  from  savage  ma- 
rauders lessened,  the  young  members  of  the 
Van  Cortlandt  clan  fell  into  the  habit  of  using 
the  fort  for  a  hunting-lodge. 


Van  Cortlandt  Manor-House      177 

The  five  sons  of  Philip  (1) — Stephen,  Abram, 
Philip,  John,  and  Pierre, — came  and  went  at 
their  pleasure,  finding  at  their  country  home 
constant  occupation.  Fish  were  abundant,  and 
deer  were  still  to  be  found  in  the  forest. 

Abram,  Philip,  and  John  died  unmarried, 
Stephen  and  Pierre  dividing  the  estate  between 
them.  It  was  but  natural  that  the  last-named 
should  gladly  embrace  the  opportunity  of  bring- 
ing up  his  young  family  in  scenes  endeared  by 
his  early  associations. 

The  brief,  blessed  calm  was  terminated  by 
the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution. 

"  In  1774," — says  the  careful  paper  prepared 
by  the  widow  of  the  late  Pierre  Van  Cortlandt, 
and  to  which  I  am  indebted  for  the  framework 
of  this  article, — "  Governor  Tryon  came  to 
Croton,  ostensibly  on  a  visit  of  courtesy,  bring- 
ing with  him  his  wife,  a  daughter  of  the  Hon. 
John  Watts  [a  kinsman  of  the  Van  Cort- 
landts].  .  .  .  The  next  morning  Governor 
Tryon  proposed  a  walk.  They  all  proceeded 
to  one  of  the  highest  points  on  the  estate,  and, 
pausing,  Tryon  announced  to  the  listening 
Van  Cortlandt  the  great  favors  that  would  be 
granted  to  him  if  he  would  espouse  the  royal 
cause,  and  give  his  adherence  to  king  and  par- 


178       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

liament.  Large  grants  of  land  would  be  added 
to  his  estates,  and  Tryon  hinted  that  a  title 
might  be  bestowed.  Van  Cortlandt  answered 
that  'he  was  chosen  representative  [to  the 
Colonial  Assembly]  by  unanimous  approba- 
tion of  a  people  who  placed  confidence  in  his 
integrity,  to  use  all  his  ability  for  the  benefit  and 
the  good  of  his  country  as  a  true  patriot,  which 
line  of  conduct  he  was  determined  to  pursue.' 
(Pierre's  nephew,  Philip  [Stephen's  son], 
entered  the  Royal  army,  served  throughout 
the  war,  and  died  in  England  in  18 14.  The 
present  Lord  Elphinstone  is  his  great-grand- 
son.) " 

The  discomfited  Tryon  returned  to  New 
York,  and  Van  Cortlandt  was  elected  to  the 
Second  Provincial  Congress  in  1775.  He  was 
also  a  delegate  to  the  Third  and  Fourth,  and 
President  of  the  Council  of  Safety. 

Franklin,  Rochambeau,  LaFayette,  Steu- 
ben, de  Lauzun — and  a  greater  than  they — 
Washington — were  honored  guests  within  the 
stout  walls  of  the  Manor-House  during  the 
war.  "  The  new  bridge  of  the  Croton,  about 
nine  miles  from  Peekskills,"  mentioned  by  the 
Commander-in-Chief  in  his  diary  of  July  2, 
1 78 1,  superseded  the  ferry,  and  the  brick-and- 


Van  Cortlandt  Manor-House      179 

timber  Ferry-house  served  as  temporary  bar- 
racks for  the  soldiers  on  their  passage  up  and 
down  the  river. 

Continued  residence  in  the  turbulent  heart 
of  military  operations  was  impossible.  Mrs. 
Van  Cortlandt  and  the  children  finally  sought 
an  asylum  upon  one  of  the  Livingston  farms 
at  Rhinebeck.  The  Manor-House  was  left  in 
charge  of  faithful  slaves,  and  was  visited  by 
the  family  by  stealth  and  at  long  intervals. 

Pierre  Van  Cortlandt  was  acting-marshal 
of  the  famous  Equestrian  Provincial  Congress, 
which  halted  in  mid-march  when  overtaken  by 
despatches  from  Washington  calling  upon 
them  for  appropriations,  etc.  Wheeling  their 
horses  into  a  hollow  square,  they  would  pass 
laws  and  legislate  bills  and  provisions  as  re- 
quired, then,  at  the  bugle-call,  form  into  line 
and  proceed  on,  their  way. 

The  brave  father  writes  to  his  son  Philip — 
who  had  thrown  himself  with  jhe  enthusiasm 
of  early  and  vigorous  manhood  into  the  Patriot 
cause,  and  was  now  in  the  camp — of  his  pray- 
erful hope  "  that  the  Lord  will  be  with  you  all, 
and  that  you  may  quit  yourselves  like  men  in 
your  country's  cause." 

Pierre  Van  Cortlandt  served  as  Lieutenant- 


180       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

Governor  from  1777  to  1795,  and  was  Presi- 
dent of  the  Convention  that  framed  the  new 
Constitution. 

The  echoes  of  the  war  had  muttered  them- 
selves into  silence,  when  he  recalled  his  house- 
hold to  the  Manor- House  and  resumed  the 
peaceful  occupations  he  loved.  The  wife  of 
his  youth  was  spared  to  him  until  1808.  She 
was  eighty-seven  years  of  age.  They  had  lived 
together  for  over  sixty  years. 

"  A  model  wife,"  says  her  biographer  ;  "  A 
model  mother  and  a  model  Christian.  She 
made  the  Manor  House  an  earthly  Paradise." 

Her  husband  outlived  her  six  years,  dying 
in  1 8 14,  at  the  ripe  age  of  ninety-four. 

"  The  simplicity  of  his  life  was  that  of  an 
ancient  Patriarch.  He  descended  to  the  grave 
full  of  years,  covered  with  honor  and  grateful 
for  his  country's  happiness.  He  retained  his 
recollection  to  the  last,  calling  upon  his  Saviour 
to  take  him  to  Himself." 

The  hero-son  Philip  (2)  succeeded  to  the 
estate.  He  had  fulfilled  in  letter  and  in  spirit 
his  pious  father's  hope,  having  won  renown 
and  rank  by  his  gallantry,  and  universal  re- 
spect by  his  talents  and  character.  In  1783 
he  received  the  rank  of  Brigadier-General  for 


Van  Cortlandt  Manor-House      181 

his  conduct  at  Yorktown.  For  sixteen  years 
he  represented  his  district  in  Congress.  In 
1824  he  accompanied  his  old  comrade  and 
dear  friend,  LaFayette,  in  his  tour  through 
the  country  they  had  helped  to  save.  He  died 
in  1 83 1,  in  his  eighty-second  year. 

Pierre  (2)  Van  Cortlandt  (Philip's  brother 
and  successor)  was  born  in  1762.  He  was  a 
student  of  Rutgers  College  in  New  Brunswick 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  and  one  of  the 
party  of  lads  who  joined  the  citizens  in  repel- 
ling an  attack  made  by  the  British  upon  the 
town.  He  studied  law  under  Alexander  Ham- 
ilton, a  kinsman  by  marriage,  Mrs.  Hamilton 
being  a  daughter  of  General  Philip  Schuyler. 
In  1801  Mr.  Van  Cortlandt  married  "  Caty," 
the  eldest  child  of  Governor  George  Clinton, 
and  after  her  death  in  181 1,  Anne,  daughter 
of  John  Stevenson,  of  Albany. 

His  only  child,  Pierre  (3)  entered  upon  his 
inheritance  in  1848.  Superb  in  physique,  and 
courtly  in  bearing,  he  is  remembered  with  af- 
fectionate esteem  by  the^  community  in  which 
he  spent  forty-eight  years  and  "  in  which  he 
had  not  one  enemy."  He  passed  away  peace- 
fully July  11,  1884. 

His   widow,   the   daughter  of   T.    Romeyn 


1 82       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

Beck,  M.D.,  of  Albany,  the  eminent  scholar 
and  writer  on  medical  jurisprudence,  lived  for 
ten  years  longer  in  the  beautiful  old  home- 
stead with  her  son  and  her  daughter,  Miss 
Anne  Stevenson  Van  Cortlandt. 

Endowed  by  nature  with  unusual  beauty  of 
person  and  intelligence,  Mrs.  Van  Cortlandt 
added  to  these  gifts  scholarly  attainments, 
vivacity  and  grace  of  manner  that  made  her  the 
pride  and  joy  of  those  who  loved  her,  and  the 
chief  attraction  of  her  home  to  the  hosts  of 
friends  who  sought  her  there.  The  charm  of  her 
conversation  and  society  was  irresistible.  She 
gave  of  her  intellectual,  as  of  her  heart,  treas- 
ures royally.  Her  fund  of  anecdote  was  ex- 
haustless,  her  descriptions  were  graphic,  and  the 
sunny  humor  that  withstood  griefs  under  which 
a  weaker  spirit  would  have  sunk  into  pessimistic 
despondency  never  deserted  her.  Her  contri- 
butions to  historical  periodicals  were  always 
trustworthy  and  full  of  interest,  her  letters 
were  models  of  easy  and  sparkling  composi- 
tion, the  only  substitute  which  absent  friends 
were  willing  to  accept  for  her  radiant  and 
gracious  presence. 

Out  of  the  fulness  of  a  loving  heart  I  offer 
this  humble  tribute  to  one  of  the  noblest  of 


Van  Cortlandt  Manor-House      183 

the  Order  of  Colonial  Dames,  whom  the  places 
she  glorified  now  know  no  more.  It  is  a  bit 
of  fadeless  rosemary,  and  it  is  laid  upon  a 
shrine. 

The  son,  Captain  James  Stevenson  Van 
Cortlandt,  followed  the  example  of  his  ances- 
tors in  answering  promptly  to  his  country's 
call  in  her  day  of  need.  He  entered  the  army  at 
eighteen,  and  served  with  distinction  through- 
out the  civil  war,  first  as  Aid-de-Camp  to  Gen- 
eral Corcoran  ;  then  with  the  New  York  155th, 
a*id,  upon  promotion,  in  the  New  York  22nd 
Cavalry,  being  with  that  regiment  during 
Sheridan's  brilliant  campaigns. 

A  married  daughter,  the  wife  of  Rev.  John 
Rutherford  Matthews,  Chaplain  in  the  U.  S. 
Navy,  occupies  the  quaint  old  Ferry-house, 
now  converted  into  a  comfortable  residence. 

The  Manor-House  is  long  and  low,  and 
draped  with  historic  romance,  legend,  and 
poetry,  as  with  the  vines  that  cling  to  the  deep 
veranda. 

Above  the  main  entrance,  with  its  Knicker- 
bocker half-door  and  brass  knocker,  are  the 
horns  of  an  immense  moose.  In  the  outer 
wall  to  the  left  is  cut  the  date  of  erection, 
"  A.D.  1681."     In  the  hall  hang  the  portraits 


1 84       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

of  John  and  Pierre,  sons  of  Philip  (i)  Van 
Cortlandt,  taken  in  boyhood.  Pierre  is  ac- 
companied by  his  dog;  John  has  his  hand  on 
the  head  of  a  fawn  tamed  by  himself.  The 
antlers  of  the  favorite,  grown  to  full  deerhood, 
and — let  us  hope — dying  a  natural  death  in  the 
fulness  of  years., — are  over  the  opposite  door. 

One  of  the  T-shaped  loopholes,  left  uncov- 
ered as  a  curious  memento  of  the  warlike  in- 
fancy of  the  homestead,  gapes  in  the  wall  of 
the  dining-room.  Beneath  it,  and  in  striking 
congruity  with  the  silent  telltale,  is  the  por- 
trait of  Joseph  Brant,  the  college-bred  Indian, 
who  "  with  all  his  native  ferocity,  was  a  polished 
gentleman." 

Aaron  Burr's  daughter,  Theodosia,  who 
should  have  been  a  competent  critic  in  matters 
of  deportment  and  etiquette,  bears  testimony 
to  the  high  breeding  of  the  Mohawk  chieftain 
in  a  letter  written  to  her  father  when  she  was 
a  precocious  and  accomplished  girl  of  fourteen. 
Burr,  who  was  in  Philadelphia,  had  given  Brant 
a  letter  of  introduction  to  Theodosia  in  New 
York,  and  the  young  lady  proceeded  to  arrange 
a  dinner-party  for  the  distinguished  stranger. 
Among  her  guests  were  Bishop  Moore  and 
Dr.  Bard,  an  eminent  physician  who  was  after- 


Van  Cortlandt  Manor-House      187 

ward  President  of  the  College  of  Physicians 
and  Surgeons  in  New  York. 

The  hostess  was,  she  says,  sadly  puzzled  in 
making  up  a  suitable  bill  of  fare. 

"  I  had  a  mind  to  lay  the  hospital  under  con- 
tribution for  a  human  head  to  be  served  up 
like  a  boar's  head  in  ancient  hall  historic. 
After  all,  he  (Brant)  was  a  most  Christian 
and  civilized  guest  in  his  manners." 

In  1779,  Colonel  Philip  Van  Cortlandt  led 
his  men  in  a  skirmish  against  Brant  and  his 
Indians,  and  while  standing  under  a  tree  and 
marshalling  his  men,  was  observed  by  the 
"  polished  "  savage.  He  promptly  ordered  a 
marksman  to  "  pick  off  "  the  white  officer.  The 
dancing  foliage  about  Colonel  Van  Cortlandt's 
head  misled  the  rifleman,  and  the  ball  missed 
the  mark  by  three  inches. 

"  Had  I  fired,  myself,"  said  Brant  in  a 
friendly  talk  with  General  Van  Cortlandt  in 
after  years,  "  I  should  not  have  the  pleasure 
of  meeting  you  to-day.  And  " — with  a  bow 
and  a  smile — "  I  am  extremely  happy  that  I 
did  not." 

The  portrait,  painted  at  the  request  of  the 
late  Mrs.  Van  Cortlandt's  grandfather,  James 
Caldwell,  of  Albany,  is  fine.     The  expression 


1 88       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

is  complacent,  even  benevolent,  although  the 
physiognomy  is  all  Indian.  There  is  not  a 
gleam  of  native  ferocity  in  the  sleek  visage, 
not  a  shadow  of  remorse  for  wanton  carnage 
in  the  smiling  eyes.  A  large  stone  corn-mortar 
used  by  the  Indians,  is  built,  for  better  preser- 
vation, into  the  wall  of  the  lawn. 

Mrs.  Van  Cortlandt  once  related  to  me  this 
anecdote,  apropos  of  Indian  neighbors: 

"One  evening,  as  the  Lieutenant-Governor  and  his 
wife  were  seated  by  their  fireside,  several  Indians  came 
in.  They  were  made  welcome,  and  a  pitcher  of  cider 
was  brought  to  them.  After  all  had  drunk,  the  Chief 
returned  his  bowl  to  Mrs.  Van  Cortlandt,  who  threw  the 
few  drops  that  remained  into  the  fire.  The  Chief,  with 
flashing  eyes  and  clenched  fists  advanced  to  strike  her. 
Governor  Van  Cortlandt  sternly  interposed,  demanding 
the  cause  of  such  violence.  Explanations  ensued,  and 
it  appeared  that  even  the  apparent  attempt  to  quench 
the  fire  on  the  hearth  was  an  insult,  according  to  Indian 
usage.     Amity  was  restored  by  an  apology." 

Better-mannered  and  more  welcome  guests 
sat  about  the  superb  old  dining-table,  which  is 
the  richer  in  color  and  more  valuable  for  each 
of  the  250  years  that  have  passed  since  it  was 
made  over  the  sea.  Washington  and  his  aids, 
and  other  world-renowned  men,  ate  from  the 
generous  board. 


LOOPHOLE  AND   BRANT'S  PORTRAIT  IN   DINING-ROOM. 


Van  Cortlandt  Manor-House      191 

In  the  library  is  an  antique  chair  taken  from 
a  captured  Spanish  privateer.  The  fireplace  is 
surrounded  by  tiles,  each  bearing  the  arms 
of  some  branch,  direct  or  collateral,  of  the  Van 
Cortlandt  family,  painted  by  Mrs.  Matthews, 
who  is  an  accomplished  and  diligent  genealo- 
gist and  antiquarian.  The  Van  Cortlandt  crest 
is  the  central  ornament.  Twenty-four  tiles 
are  to  the  right  and  left  of  it. 

It  is  almost  miraculous  that  such  wealth  of 
silver,  glass,  and  china  survived  the  early  colo- 
nial wars,  and  the  frequent  removals  these 
rendered  necessary,  as  one  sees  upon  the  buf- 
fets and  in  the  closets  of  the  Manor-House. 
To  the  relic-lover,  historian,  and  romancist, 
every  step  is  a  surpriseful  delight. 

Before  a  profile-portrait,  in  a  small  chamber 
on  the  first  floor,  we  pause  in  silent  reverence. 
It  shows  a  woman  past  the  prime  of  life,  but 
still  beautiful.  Her  features  are  strong,  yet 
refined,  the  eyes  are  clear  and  solemn.  Within 
the  locked  do&r  of  this  apartment,  Joanna 
Livingston,  wife  of  Lieutenant-Governor  Pierre 
Van  Cortlandt,  knelt  and  prayed  and  fasted 
from  morning  until  night,  on  the  day  of  the 
battle  of  White  Plains.  To  the  devout  imagi- 
nation, there  is  a  brooding  hush  in  the  atmos- 


1 92       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

phere  of  the  secluded  room  consecrated  for  all 
time  by  agonized  supplication  for  husband,  son, 
and  country. 

The  wedding  gown  of  Joanna  Livingston 
is  preserved  here,  and  we  regard  with  almost 
equal  interest  a  bit  of  pink  silk  kept  in  Mrs. 
Matthews's  reliquary.  I  give  the  story  as 
nearly  as  possible  in  Mrs.  Van  Cortlandt's 
words  : 

"  Gilbert*  Van  Cortlandt  wrote  to  his  father  :  '  Nancy 

lias  got  a  bright  pink  silk— beautiful  !       She  will  appear 
as  well  as  the  best  of  them.' 

"  '  Nancy  '  was  the  daughter  of  Pierre  Van  Cortlandt 
and  Joanna  Livingston.  She  married  Philip  Schuyler 
\an  Rensselaer,  long  Mayor  of  Albany,  and  a  brother  of 
the  Patroon.  '  Nancy,'  on  one  occasion  when  going  to 
dine  with  the  Patroon,  wore  this  dress,  and  just  as  she 
was  setting  out,  a  party  of  Methodist  preachers  drove  to 
the  door.  As  usual,  they  expected  entertainment  and 
lodging.  While  she  was  receiving  them,  one  of  the  party 
turned  to  her  and  said  :  '  Madame  !  do  you  expect  to  go 
to  Heaven  in  that  gown  ? '  She  was  shocked  at  his 
rudeness,  and  never  wore  the  dress  again,  on  account  of 
the  unpleasant  association  connected  with  it." 

Another,  and  a  sadder  family  story  is  of  the 
untimely  death  of  Catherine,  only  daughter  of 
Philip  (1)  Van  Cortlandt  and  his  wife  Cath- 

*  Son  of  Lieutenant-Governor  Van  Cortlandt. 


FIREPLACE  IN   LIBRARY. 


Van  Cortlandt  Manor-House      195 

erine  de  Peyster.  Having  gone  with  her 
nurse  to  the  then  fashionable  promenade,  the 
Battery,  on  June  4,  1738,  to  witness  the  cele- 
bration of  the  King's  birthday,  the  little  girl 
was  killed  by  the  bursting  of  a  cannon  used  in 
firing  salutes.  She  was  but  twelve  years  of 
age.  Her  body  was  laid  in  a  vault  in  Trinity 
Church,  New  York.  Several  years  later  the 
tomb  was  opened,  and  the  devoted  nurse  who 
had  insisted  upon  being  present,  saw  the  pretty 
child  lying  asleep  as  in  life.  The  woman  stooped 
to  kiss  her.  At  the  touch  of  her  lips,  the  body 
crumbled  to  dust.  There  was  left,  where  the 
face  had  been,  but  a  moment  before,  only  the 
small  cap  with  its  crimped  border,  and  the 
'•  minnikin "  pins  that  had  fastened  it  to  the 
hair. 

In  the  "ghost-room"  of  the  Manor-House 
are  the  portraits  of  the  first  and  second  wives 
of  General  Pierre  (2)  Van  Cortlandt.  The 
dark,  clearly  cut  face  in  profile  opposite  the 
door  is  that  of  "Caty"  Clinton.  Wilfulness 
speaks  in  every  lineament,  but  the  piquante 
face  is  wistful,  rather  than  petulant.  She 
married,  clandestinely,  Captain  John  Taylor, 
a  British  officer,  on  the  eve  of  his  departure 
for  England.     It  may  have  been  three  months 


196       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

thereafter  when  her  father  looked  up  from  a 
newspaper  to  observe  : 

"  I   see  that   Captain   Taylor  died  at   Fal- 
mouth, soon  after  reaching  port." 

His  daughter  interrupted  him  by  falling  in 
a  faint  at  his  feet.  While  looking  at  her  pict- 
ured presentment  we  can  believe  that  she  car- 
ried the  traces  of  the  early  love  affair  and  the 
shock  of  the  tragedy  that  ended  it,  throughout 
the  few  years  of  her  married  life  with  the 
gallant  gentleman  who  had  this  portrait  of  her 
finished  after  her  death.  His  second  wife,  it 
is  said,  sat  for  the  figure.  He  always  spoke 
of  Caty  as  "  bright  and  beautiful."  The  fam- 
ily annals  describe  her  as  "  energetic  and  viva- 
cious." Of  Anne  Stevenson,  the  mother  of 
his  only  child  (poor  Caty  had  none  ! )  he  said, 
"  She  was  an  angel."  And  yet  we  turn  from 
her  lovely,  high-bred  face  for  another  and 
longer  look  at  the  child-widow,  whose  soldier- 
love  never  came  back  to  give  her  courage  to 
confess  the  ill-starred  marriage  to  her  father. 

The  ghost-lore  of  the  ancient  homestead  is 
rich  and  authentic.  This  is  one  of  the  stories 
told  me  while  I  loitered  in  the  chamber  fur- 
nished with  belongings  one  and  two  centuries 
old, 


i97 


THE       GHOST-ROOM." 


Van  Cortlandt  Manor-House      199 

The  narrator  was  the  noble  mistress  of  the 
Manor-House  : 

"  A  young  lady  visiting  us  in  September,  1863,  was 
asked  if  she  minded  sleeping  in  the  Ghost-Room,  as  it 
was  a  long  while  since  any  mysterious  sounds  had  been 
heard  there.  She  was  told  that  if  she  was  nervous  a  ser- 
vant would  occupy  the  adjoining  apartment.  She 
laughed  at  the  query,  and  '  had  no  belief  in  or  fear  of  ap- 
paritions.' In  the  morning  she  came  to  the  breakfast- 
table,  pale  and  ill-at-ease.  After  breakfast,  she  confessed 
to  having  awakened,  suddenly,  feeling  that  some  one  was 
in  the  room  near  her  bed.  Presently,  it  took  the  definite 
shape  of  a  woman,  dressed  in  a  brown  gown,  with  a  white 
handkerchief  crossed  over  her  breast.  A  large  apron,  a 
bunch  of  keys  at  her  side,  a  mob  cap  and  long  ear-rings 
completed  the  figure.  It  remained  for  what  seemed  a 
long  time,  and  twitched  the  bed-clothes  off,  disappear- 
ing as  the  whistle  of  the  two  o'clock  train  was  heard. 

"As  soon  as  we  heard  this  story,  my  daughter  and  I 
exclaimed, '  That  is  the  exact  description  of  R — ! '  an  old 
housekeeper  who  lived  at  General  Van  Cortlandt's  house 
at  Peekskill  and  had  died  some  time  before.  Every  de- 
tail was  exact,  although  the  guest  had  never  seen  or 
heard  of  her. 

"  The  sound  of  a  carriage  driven  up  the  gravelled 
drive  to  the  front-door,  has  been  heard  by  every  mem- 
ber of  the  family.  An  old  servant,  a  former  slave  and 
most  excellent  creature,  used  to  declare  that  she  had 
seen,  in  days  past,  the  coach  and  pair  with  liveried  ser- 
vants and  old  Lady  Van  Cortlandt  alighting  at  the  door. 
I  never  did,  but  I  have  heard  it  many  times  ;  the  tramp- 


200       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

ling  hoofs,  the  roll  and  grating  of  the  wheels,  the  sudden 
check  at  the  foot  of  the  steps,  and,  looking  out,  saw 
nothing." 

A  plate  let  into  a  pillar  of  the  veranda  re- 
cords that  George  Whitefield  stood  here  while 
he  preached  to  an  immense  audience  upon  the 
lawn.  Bishop  Asbury  also  preached  from  the 
improvised  pulpit. 

Sorrows  have  multiplied  and  thickened  above 
the  venerable  homestead  in  later  years,  but 
the  cordial  hospitality  characteristic  of  the 
Van  Cortlandts  in  every  generation  is  still  ex- 
tended to  stranger  and  to  friend.  Love  and 
good-will  sit  with  clasped  hands  before  the 
ancient  hearthstone  ;  the  spirit  of  charity, 
generous  and  graceful,  abides  within  the  walls 
like  a  visible  benediction  upon  inmates  and 
guests. 


IX 


OAK  HILL,  UPON  THE  LIVINGSTON  MANOR 


FAIR  Alida  (van)  Schuyler,  daughter  of 
Philip  Petersen  Schuyler  of  Albany,  mar- 
ried, first,  Rev.  Nicholas  van  Rensselaer,  and, 
as  his  widow,  espoused,  in  1683,  Robert  Living- 
ston, one  of  the  most 
remarkable  men  of  his 
century. 

H  is  family  sprang  from  a 
Hungarian  root.  "  Liven- 
gus  "  is  among  the  names 
of  the  knights  who  fol- 
lowed William  of  Nor- 
mandy across  the  Channel. 
A  Livingston,  George,  of 
Linlithgow,  lost  title  and  estate  through  his 
devoted  partisanship  of  the  losing  side  in 
1645. 


LIVINGSTON  COAT-OF-ARMS. 

MOTTO.   "  81  JE  PUIS." 


20I 


202       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

Robert,  his  grandson,  was  the  son  of  John 
Livingston,  a  Scottish  clergyman  resident  in 
Linlithgow  until  his  removal  to  Holland  after 
the  sequestration  of  the  family  estates.  Cal- 
lender  House,  in  the  neighborhood  of  this 
town,  was  one  of  the  residences  of  the  family. 
The  name  occurs  frequently  upon  the  grave- 
stones in  the  burial-ground  of  the  parish  church. 

John — otherwise  "  Messer  John,"  otherwise, 
"  Dominie  "  Livingston — visited  America  to 
"prospect"  for  the  foundation  of  a  family 
estate  in  the  New  World,  a  scheme  foiled  by 
his  death  soon  after  his  return  to  Scotland, 
about  the  year  1672.  Robert  sailed  for  this 
country  in  1674,  and  settled  in  the  Dutch  Col- 
ony of  Beverwyck  (Albany). 

In  1675,  he  was  Town  Clerk  and  Secretary 
of  Indian  affairs.  In  1680,  he  presented  to 
"  his  Excellency,  Sir  Edmund  Andross  knt., 
Governor  Gen'l.  under  his  Royall  Highness  of 
New  Yorke  and  Dependences  in  America," 
an  "  humble  peticou  "  for  the  grant  of  a  "  Cer- 
tain tract  of  Land  Lying  upon  Rolef  Jansen's 
kill  or  Creeke,  upon  the  East  side  of  Hudson's 
River  near  Cats  kill  belonging  to  the  Indian 
Proprietors  not  purchased  by  anybody  hitherto 
and   your   humble   Petioner   being    Informed 


Oak  Hill  203 

that  the  owners  are  willing  to  dispose  of  the 
same  with  the  runn  of  Water  or  Creeke,"  etc., 
etc., 

The  u  peticou  "  is  superscribed  : 

"  Granted  to  be  Purchased  according  to 
Law  And  upon  A  Survey  thereof  Duly  re- 
turned a  Pattent  to  be  granted  him  for  a 
Bowery  or  farme  there  as  desired.  New  Yorke 
the  1 2th  of  Novemb'r  1680, 

B.  Andross." 

This  modest  demand,  promptly  granted, 
was  the  tip  of  the  camel's  nose  thrust  into  the 
wigwam  window  of  the  Mohican  Indians  own- 
ing  '•  3  Flatts  with  some  small  Flatts,"  to- 
gether with  sundry  "Woodland,  Kills,  Creeks," 
and  the  like,  extending  "  Northwards,  South- 
wards and  further  Eastward,  keeping  the  same 
breadth  as  on  the  River  bank."  The  land 
was  paid  for  in  guilders,  "  Blankets  and  Child's 
Blankets,"  shirts,  cloth,  ten  kettles,  powder, 
guns,  twenty  little  looking-glasses,  fish-hooks, 
awls  and  nails,  tobacco,  knives,  strong  beer. 
"  Four  stroud  coats,  two  duffel  coats  and  four 
tin  kettles,"  rum  and  pipes,  ten  pairs  of  large 
stockings  and  ten  pairs  of  small,  not  to  men- 
tion adzes,  paint,  bottles,  and  twenty  little 
scissors. 


204      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

The  deed  was  signed  July  12,  1683,  in  Al- 
bany, by  Robert  Livingston,  a  Dutch  inter- 
preter, two  Dutch  witnesses  and — each  by  his 
mark — four  Indians. 

Tamaranachquae,  an  Indian  woman,  stipu- 
lated, before  signing,  for  the  right  to  plant 
and  sow  for  four  years  on  a  certain  "  little 
hook  of  Land." 

This  first  grant  was  for  2000  acres  of  land 
on  Hudson's  River. 

Letters  patent  for  another  tract  of  600 
acres  were  issued  to  Robert  Livingston,  Aug. 
27,  1685.  In  1686,  the  tracts  were  erected 
into  a  Lordship  of  Manor,  giving  a  "  Court- 
leet,  Court-Baron,  and  other  dignities  and 
privileges." 

The  Attorney-General  for  the  Crown  in- 
dorsed the  "  pattent "  to  the  effect  that  it  had 
been  "  duly  perused  and  found  to  contain 
nothing  prejudiciall  to  His  Majestye's  interest." 
There  was  a  good  deal  to  be  perused.  Be- 
sides the  usual  legal  verbiage  and  iteration, 
there  is  mention  of  "  black  Oake  "  and  "  white 
Oake  Trees  marked  L,"  of  "  Timberwoods, 
Underwoods,  Swamps,  Moors,  Marshes,  Mead- 
ows, Rivoletts,  Hawking,  Hunting,  fishing, 
fowling  "  (with  never  a  comma  between,  in  the 


205     ROBERT  LIVINGSTON,  FIRST  LORD  OF  LIVINGSTON   MANOR. 


Oak  Hill  207 

original)  of  a  "  Marsh  lyeing  neare  unto  the 
said  kills  of  the  said  Heapes  of  Stones  upon 
which  the  Indians  throw  upon  another  as  they 
Passe  by  from  an  Ancient  Custom  among 
them,"  of  "  Mines  Mineralls  (Silver  and  Gold 
Mines  only  excepted) "  and  so  on  through 
about  three  thousand  "  words,  words,  words  !  " 
winding  up  with  statement  of  the  obligation 
on  the  part  of  the  said  Robert  Livingston, 
"his  Heires  and  assigns  for  ever,"  to  pay  a 
yearly  rent  or  tax  of  "  Eight  and  twenty 
Shillings  Currant  mony  of  this  Country,"  to 
the  Crown. 

Thus  far  the  world  and  his  adopted  land 
had  dealt  generously  by  the  son  of  the  Scotch 
Dominie. 

The  first  discord  in  the  chant  of  praise  to 
him  who  had  done  so  well  for  himself  comes 
to  us  in  a  note  from  the  Earl  of  Bellomont, 
resident  Governor,  of  the  Colony,  of  whom  we 
shall  hear  more  in  other  chapters — addressed 
to  the  London  Board  of  Trade. 

"  2nd  J  any  ijoi. 

"  Mr  Livingston  has  on  his  great  grant  of 
16  miles  long  and  24  broad,  but  4  or  5  cot- 
tages as  I  am  told,  men  that  live  in  vassalage 
under  him  and  are  too  poor  to  be  farmers  not 


208       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

having  wherewithall  to  buy  cattle  to  stock  a 
farm." 

The  sequitur  to  this  note  was  the  removal 
by  Lord  Bellomont  of  Robert  Livingston  from 
the  office  of  collector  of  excise  in  Albany,  and 
the  statement,  also  accredited  to  the  Earl- 
Governor,  that  the  collector  deserved,  on 
account  of  "  great  frauds  "  practised  in  and  out 
of  office,  to  be  suspended  from  His  Majesty's 
Council.  Lieutenant-Governor  Nanfran  took 
up  the  accusation  upon  Lord  Bellomont's 
death  in  1701.  In  his  indictment  he  declares 
that  the  story  of  the  ex-collector's  connection 
with  "  Capt.  Kidd  the  pyrate  "  had  never  been 
disproved  ;  that  Livingston  was  guilty  of  fraud- 
ulent and  contumelious  conduct,  and  desertion 
of  His  Majestye's  service  and  province.  For 
these  causes,  singly  and  combined,  he  was 
suspended  "from  being  one  of  his  Maj'ty's 
Council  of  this  province  until  his  Maj'ty's 
pleasure  be  further  known  therein." 

The  next  blow  was  a  demand  from  the 
Assembly  that  he  be  deprived  of  all  his  offices, 
five  in  number,  and  his  estate  be  confiscate. 
In  1705,  arrived  Queen  Anne's  warrant  rein- 
stating him  in  every  office.  The  Council, 
thereupon,  declared  his   position  of  Secretary 


aog    GERTRUDE  SCHUYLER  (SECOND  WIFE  OF  ROBERT  LIVINGSTON). 


Oak  Hill  211 

of  Indian  affairs  a  sinecure,  and  refused  to  pay 
his  salary.  Rob't  Livingston's  petition  to 
Lord  Lovelace,  "  Governor-in-Chief  of  the 
Province  in  New  Yorke  East  and  West  Jer- 
says  &c,"  for  payment  of  moneys  due  him  for 
services  rendered  as  Indian  Agent,  contains 
the  mention  of  the  prudent  neutrality  of  his 
wife's  brother  when  Livingston's  petition  for 
the  "  arrears  of  his  said  salary  "  was  laid  before 
the  Council.  He  thus  quotes  the  entry  on 
the  Council-Book,   Sept,  15,  1708. 

"  It  is  ye  opinion  of  his  Excellency  &  all  ye 
Council  (Except  Coll.  Schuyler  who  gave  no 
opinion  therein)  that  ye  Petition  be  disal- 
lowed," etc.,  etc. 

The  indefatigable  Lord  of  the  "Mannor" 
next  offered  himself  as  representative  to  the 
Albany  Assembly  and  was  elected  in  1  709, — a 
position  he  held  for  five  years.  In  that  time, 
he  secured  the  repeal  of  every  act  injurious  to 
himself,  and  triumphed  completely  over  de- 
tractors and  persecutors. 

In  1 710,  the  parent  government  transported 
a  colony  of  three  thousand  Palatines  (Hes- 
sians) to  a  tract  of  land  lying  on  Hudson 
River.  The  Queen,  no  longer  needing  them 
as   mercenary  troops,  lent  willing  ear  to  the 


212       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

proposition  that  they  should  be  settled  near 
the  Canadian  frontier,  as  a  passive  safeguard 
against  French  and  Indians,  and  to  make  "  Tur- 
pentine, Rozin,  Tarr  and  Pitch  "  for  commerce 
and  the  British  navy.  It  is  an  interesting  and 
somewhat  diverting  story,  that  of  this  trouble- 
some colony,  many  of  whose  names  are  per- 
petuated in  the  denizens  of  East  and  West 
Camps  and  Germantown,  New  York.  Robert 
Livingston  sold  to  Governor  Hunter  as  Repre- 
sentative of  the  Crown,  for  four  hundred 
pounds  sterling,  enough  land  to  furnish  a  plot 
of  ground  and  a  cabin-site  to  each  immigrant 
family,  and  obtained  the  contract  to  feed  them 
at  sixpence  a  head,  per  diem.  Liberal  rights 
of  way  were  reserved  in  the  ponderous  deed 
recording  the  transfer,  also,  hunting  and  fish- 
ing privileges,  and  liberty  of  digging,  taking, 
and  carrying  away  stones  from  the  river  beach. 
Stipulation  was  further  made  that  no  pines 
should  be  felled  within  six  English  miles  of 
the  Livingston  saw-mills. 

Notwithstanding  the  minute  provisions  of 
the  contract  made  with  Livingston  for  vict- 
ualling the  Palatines,  he  so  far  managed  to  get 
the  best  of  the  bargain  that  Lord  Clarendon 
wrote  to  Lord  Darmouth,  in  171 1,  his  convic- 


Oak  Hill  213 

tion  that  "  Livingston  and  some  others  will 
get  estates.  The  Palatines  will  not  be  the 
richer." 

It  would  be  tedious,  and  it  is  needless  to 
go  into  the  particulars  of  the  further  connec- 
tion of  Robert  Livingston  with  the  Hessian 
settlement.  If  he  made  money  out  of  the 
Crown  and  the  Palatines,  they  were  a  fret- 
ting thorn  in  his  side  until  the  day  of  his 
death. 

In  1 72 1,  he  moved,  as  "Sole  Proprietor  of 
the  Manor  of  Livingston,"  for  the  establish- 
ment and  building  of  a  church  upon  his 
estate,  and  for  calling  "some  able  and  pious 
Dutch  Reformed  Protestant  Minister  from 
Holland "  to  officiate  therein.  The  chapel 
now  standing  at  Staatje  (Little  Village)  about 
a  mile  and  a  half  below  the  site  of  the  Manor- 
House,  is  built  over  the  vault  of  the  ancient 
church.  The  chapel — a  new  structure — took 
the  place  of  the  "  Livingston  Reformed  Church 
of  Linlithgow,"  erected  in  1780.  Generations 
of  dead  Livingstons  rest  within  the  vault, 
which  was  bricked  over  for  all  time,  within  a 
few  years,  by  Mr.  Herman  Livingston  of  Oak 
Hill. 

The   original    Manor-House    stood   at   the 


214       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

mouth  of  what  was  at  the  time  of  the  grant 
known  as  "  Roelef  Jansen's  Kill,"  and  after- 
wards received  the  name  of  Livingston  Creek. 
It  was  low-ceiled  and  thick-walled,  a  colonial 
farm-house  with  outbuildings  for  negro  slaves 
and  other  laborers.  An  odd  and  yet  authentic 
tradition  is  that  Robert  Livingston  kept  his 
wealth  of  ready  money  on  the  floor  in  one 
corner  of  his  bedroom.  There  was  no  lock 
on  the  door,  through  which,  when  open,  chil- 
dren, servants,  and  visitors  could  see  the  piles 
of  Spanish  coins  heaped  up  in  apparent  care- 
lessness. The  story  goes  so  far  as  to  give 
$30,000  as  the  amount  of  the  deposits  on  one 
occasion  in  this  primitive  bank,  and  to  add 
the  astounding  information  that  the  pro- 
prietor, who  was  at  once  Board  of  Direction, 
President  and  Cashier,  never  lost  doubloon  or 
dollar  by  the  dishonesty  of  those  who  could 
easily  have  made  drafts  upon  his  "  pile." 

Robert  Livingston  died  in  1722.  In  listen- 
ing to  the  story  of  his  life,  the  wonder  arises 
that  he  yielded  finally  to  any  foe,  even  the 
King  of  Terrors.  His  was  a  crafty,  far- 
reaching  intellect  ;  in  will-power  he  was  sub- 
lime. He  grasped  audaciously,  and  held 
what  he  gained  with  a  grip  which  councillors 


Oak  Hill 


215 


«#°    M^/0 


and  nobles  could  not   relax.     When  deprived 
at  home  of  offices  and  titles,  he  went   abroad 
in  one  of  his  own  vessels,  to  sue  for  justice 
at  the  foot  of  the  throne,  and  brought   home 
in  his   pocket  the  papers   reinstating  him   in 
position  and  fortune.      Upon  the   return  voy- 
age he  was  in  imminent  danger  of  shipwreck. 
In  recognition  of  his  signal 
deliverance,    he     set    aside 
the   family   crest, — a  demi- 
sauvage,    with    the    motto, 
"  Si  je  puis" — and  assumed 
a  device  of  his  own, — a  ship 
in  distress,  with  the  legend 
' '  Spero  meliora. "     T  o  h  ar d i- 
hood,  enterprise,    and  keen 
intelligence,  he    must   have 
joined     a     magnetic      per- 
sonality of   which  history,    written  and    oral, 
gives   no   hint   except  by  recording  his  mag- 
nificent successes.    Buccaneers,  Indian  savages, 
phlegmatic  Dutchmen,  peers  and  princes,  seem 
to  have  been  powerless  to  resist  his  influence 
when  confronted  by  him,  however  they  might 
plot  for  his  ruin  in  his  absence. 

Yet  it  is  not  a  comely,  or  in  any  sense  an 
attractive,   visage  that  gazes  at  us   from  the 


ROBERT  LIVINGSTON'S 
CREST. 


216      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

Oak  Hill  portrait  of  the  first  Lord  of  the 
Manor.  In  full-bottomed  wig  and  official 
scarlet  robes,  he  looks  the  astute  sardonic 
rugged-featured  Scotchman,  born  to  drive  and 
domineer  when  he  could,  and  to  outwit  where 
force  was  futile. 

At  the  death  of  this  extraordinary  man,  his 
will  bestowed  the  lower  section  of  the  Manor 
(Clermont)  upon  his  son,  Robert,  the  Manor 
proper  descending  to  the  oldest  son,  Philip. 

Philip  Livingston's  will  (dated  July  15,  1748) 
left  the  Manor  to  his  son  Robert,  known  in 
the  family  as  Robert  Livingston,  Jun'r.  Rob- 
ert's estate,  by  a  will  bearing  date  of  May  31, 
1784,  was,  at  his  death,  divided  among  his 
sons,  Walter,  Robert  C,  John,  and  Henry. 

Robert  Livingston,  Jr.,  inherited  with  the 
Manor  and  name  his  grandfather's  pluck  and 
persecutions.  The  immense  estate,  great  now 
in  value  as  in  extent,  was  the  subject  of  con- 
troversy between  Massachusetts  and  New 
York.  The  correspondence  carried  on  by 
lawyers  and  governors  is  voluminous  and 
entertaining. 

In  1795,  about  260  descendants  of  the  emi- 
grant Palatines— "  Inhabitants  of  the  Town  of 
Livingston,  in  the  County  of  Columbia,"  de- 


217  PHILIP  LIVINGSTON  (SECOND  LORD  OF  THE  MANOR). 


Oak  Hill  219 

manded  from  the  New  York  Legislature  an 
investigation  into  the  title  by  which  the  Liv- 
ingstons held  their  famous  Manor.  Much  of 
the  petition  is  taken  up  with  the  recapitulation 
of  the  terms  and  limitations  of  the  original 
grants  which,  it  alleged,  were  for  but  2600 
acres,  whereas  the  descendants  of  the  said 
Robert  Livingston  claim  under  these  letters- 
patent,  175,000  acres. 

About  one  third  of  the  petitioners  signed  the 
instrument  with  their  marks,  instead  of  writing 
their  names.  At  the  foot  of  the  document  is 
the  briefly  significant  note  : 

"  •  •  .  On  the  19  March,  1795,  the 
committee  of  the  Assembly  reported  adversely 
on  the  above  petition,  and  the  House  con- 
curred in  the  report  on  the  23d  of  the  same 
month." 

Judge  Sutherland  prefaces  his  able  "  De- 
duction of  Title  to  the  Manor  of  Livingston," 
by  a  note  to  the,  then,  proprietor  (in  1850) 
Mr.  Herman  Livingston,  in  which  he  gives  the 
number  of  acres  originally  contained  in  the 
estate  as  160,000.  "  All  of  which,"  he  adds, 
"  have  been  sold  and  conveyed  in  fee  simple, 
but  about  35,000  acres." 

This  "deduction"  was  consequent  upon  a 


220      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

celebrated  Manorial  suit  contesting  the  valid- 
ity of  the  Livingston  title,  in  which  Judge 
Sutherland  was  counsel  for  the  proprietors. 
A  MS.  note  upon  the  fly-leaf  of  the  pamphlet 
before  me  informs  the  reader  that  "  John 
Van  Buren's  fee  from  the  Anti-Renters  was 
$2500,  and  $20  per  day  from  the  state  during 
the  trial." 


X 

OAK  HILL  ON  THE  LIVINGSTON  MANOR 

( Concluded. ) 

THE    original    Manor- House,   built   by  the 
*       first  Robert  Livingston,  was  demolished 
over  one  hundred  years  ago. 

The  site  is  now  occupied  by  the  dwelling  of 
Mr.  Alexander  Crafts,  a  grandson  of  Robert 
Tong  Livingston.  Not  one  stone  of  the  old 
house  is  left  upon  another,  but  now  and  then 
the  plough  brings  up  a  corroded  coin,  as  if  to 
mark  the  location  of  the  primeval  Banking- 
house  established  by  the  canny  Scot.  His 
wealth,  portioned  among  his  descendants,  was 
held  and  increased  by  them  to  an  extent  un- 
usual in  American  families.  Stately  home- 
steads arose  upon  desirable  points  of  the  vast 
plantation,  until  nearly  every  commanding 
eminence  for  a  dozen  miles  up  and  down  the 
river  was  owned  by  one  of  the  blood  or  name. 

221 


222       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

Clermont,  the  home  of  Chancellor  Robert 
Livingston  at  Tivoli,  was,  and  is  one  of  the 
finest  and  most  interesting  of  these.  It  stands 
upon  the  lower  division  of  the  estate,  and  is 
a  noble  edifice,  built  in  the  form  of  an  H,  and 
gray  with  honorable  old  age.  Paintings,  fur- 
niture, and  other  heirlooms  are  preserved  with 
pious  care. 

Mr.  Clermont  Livingston,  the  present  pro- 
prietor, is  a  grandson  of  Chancellor  Living- 
ston. The  adjoining  estate  is  owned  by  Mr. 
John  Henry  Livingston,  a  grandson  of  Her- 
man Livingston  (i)  of  Oak  Hill. 

The  last-named  mansion — Oak  Hill — was 
built  by  John  Livingston  in  1798,  as  the  im- 
mediate successor  of  the  heavy-raftered  farm- 
stead dignified  by  Royal  Charter  into  a 
Baronial  Hall.  The  modern  Ma  nor- House 
is  about  one  and  a  half  miles  from  the  aban- 
doned site. 

The  omnipotence  of  affluence,  conjoined 
with  education  and  continued  through  four 
generations,  wrought  out  in  John  Livingston 
a  finer  type  of  manhood  than  his  well-born 
ancestor  developed  in  the  New  World. 

A  descendant  thus  describes  the  master  of 
Oak  Hill  in  his  old  age  : 


JOHN   LIVINGSTON. 
(THE  last  lord  of  the  manor.) 


Oak  Hill  225 

"  His  style  of  dress  was  that  worn  by  all  courtly  gentle- 
men of  the  olden  time, — a  black  dress-coat,  with  knee- 
breeches  fastened  over  his  black  silk  stockings  with 
silver  buckles  ;  similar  buckles  of  a  larger  size  were  in 
his  shoes.  He  had  a  high  forehead,  beautiful  blue  eyes, 
a  straight  nose,  and  a  very  determined  mouth.  His  hair 
was  carefully  dressed  every  morning,  the  long  queue  was 
rewound,  the  whole  head  plentifully  besprinkled  with 
powder,  and  the  small  curls,  that  had  remained  in  papers 
during  breakfast-time,  adjusted  on  each  side  of  his  neck." 

He  was  thought  by  many  to  bear  a  strong 
resemblance  to  General  Washington  ;  but,  as 
a  beautiful  miniature  on  ivory  shows,  was  a 
much  handsomer  man,  his  features  being  cast 
in  a  nobler  mould,  and  chiselled  into  refine- 
ment of  beauty  by  a  life  that  varied  widely 
from  the  severe  discipline  which  was  the  first 
President's  from  his  childhood. 

As  was  to  be  expected,  the  last  of  his  line 
to  hold  the  title  of  "  laird  "  in  this  republic  was  a 
man  of  mark  by  reason  of  position  and  personal 
accomplishments.  Opulence  and  ease  had  not 
enfeebled  the  bound  of  the  Linlithgow  blood, 
and  the  passion  for  adding  field  to  field  that 
had  made  Livingston  Manor,  lived  in  old 
Robert's  great-grand  children.  John  Living- 
ston and  his  brother  bought  immense  tracts 
of  land  in  New  York,  until  they  called  forth  a 


226       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

legislative  remonstrance.  It  was  hardly  conso- 
nant with  the  genius  of  democracy,  it  was  rep- 
resented, that  one  family  should  own  the 
entire  State.  The  brothers  then  cast  covetous 
eyes  upon  Western  lands,  miles  of  which  they 
purchased,  including  the  territory  upon  which 
the  town  of  New  Connecticut,  Ohio,  was  built. 
They  had  saw-mills,  flour-mills,  and,  at  Ancram, 
New  York,  valuable  iron  works. 

The  taste  for  iron — in  the  ore — was  common 
to  several  branches,  direct  and  collateral,  of  the 
race.  Sarah,  daughter  of  Philip  Livingston, 
married  Alexander,  titular  Earl  of  Stirling, 
whose  mines  in  the  mountains  of  New  Jersey 
are  mentioned  in  our  chapter  upon  the  Schuy- 
ler Homestead.  Her  portrait  at  Oak  Hill  is 
that  of  a  stately  dame  in  whose  haughty  face 
one  traces  a  decided  resemblance  to  her  grand- 
father, Robert,  of  the  ponderous  peruke  and 
scarlet  robes. 

The  story  of  Oak  Hill  life  under  the  last 
laird  reads  like  an  English  holiday  romance, 
rather  than  the  early  annals  of  a  war-beaten 
young  nation.  John  Livingston  delighted,  at 
seventy-five,  to  tell  his  grandchildren  tales  of 
the  social  gayeties  of  that  epoch,  of  the  family 
dinner-parties  ;  the  evening  gatherings  in  the 


Oak  Hill  227 

summer,  when,  from  one  and  another  of  the 
handsome  residences  dotting  the  rising  ground 
back  of  the  river,  came  chariot  and  cavalcade, 
with  scores  of  kinspeople  to  laugh,  talk  and 
dance  away  the  hours  ;  of  sleighing-parties  to 
Clermont  and  Oak  Hill,  when  revelry  ran  yet 
higher.  On  one  memorable  occasion,  every 
sleigh,  in  turning  from  the  Oak  Hill  door,  upset 
in  a  particularly  incommodious  snowdrift  at  the 
corner  of  the  house. 

"  Water  picnics "  occurred  several  times 
during  the  summer.  The  Livingstons,  from 
Robert  down,  were  ship-owners.  They  estab- 
lished a  line  of  "fast  packets"  for  coast  and 
ocean  voyages,  and  their  sloops  plied  regularly 
to  and  from  New  York.  Merry  parties  of 
cousins  took  passage  in  the  June  weather  on 
the  laden  sloops  and  ran  down  to  the  city  and 
back,  for  the  fun  of  it. 

"  Our  two  voyages  " — i.  e.,  up  and  down  to 
New  York — "  occupied  nine  days  and  seven 
hours,"  says  a  participant  in  one  of  these 
"  runs," — "  and  we  were  received  at  Oak  Hill 
with  as  hearty  a  welcome  as  if  we  had  per- 
formed the  journey  around  the  world." 

The  Manor  servants  were  all  negro  slaves, 
removed  by  so    few  years  from  African  pro- 


228      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

genitors,  that  the  older  among  them  resorted, 
by  stealth,  at  night,  to  a  cave  in  the  hills  not 
far  away,  for  the  practice  of  Voudoo  worship, 
until  the  custom  was  discovered  by  their  mas- 
ter and  promptly  broken  up. 

A  newspaper  letter,  printed  on  paper  now 
falling  to  pieces  with  age,  thus  recalls  "  times  " 
that  were  "  old  "  when  it  was  issued  : 

"  At  Oak  Hill,  John  Livingston  resided  and  owned 
a  whole  flock  of  niggers,  the  fattest,  and  the  laziest,  and 
the  sauciest  set  of  darkies  that  ever  lay  in  the  sunshine. 
They  worked  little  and  ate  much,  and  whenever  there 
was  a  horse-race  or  a  pig-shave  at  '  the  Stauchy  ' 
(Staatje)  the  negroes  must  have  the  horses,  even  if 
their  master  should  be  obliged  to  go  about  his  business 
on  foot.  When  they  visited  Catskill  in  tasseled  boots 
and  ruffled  shirts,  they  were  sure  to  create  a  sensation, 
and  it  was  not  unusual  for  the  '  poor  whites  '  to  sigh  for 
the  sumptuous  happiness  of  John  Livingston's  slaves." 

From  the  simple,  touching  story  of  John 
Livingston's  last  days,  given  by  his  grand- 
daughter, I  make  an  extract  : 

"  When  the  logs  lay  piled  high  on  the  shining  brass 
andirons,  and  the  blaze  began  to  stream  up  the  capacious 
chimney,  emitting  its  cheerful  crackling  sound,  Grand- 
papa would  arouse  himself,  and,  with  brightened  eye, 
and  almost  his  own  pleasant  smile  would  listen  to  the 
stories  of  our  day's   adventures.     Sometimes  he  would 


Oak  Hill  229 

tell  us  incidents  of  his  boyhood,  stirring  events  of  our 
glorious  Revolution,  some  of  whose  heroes  he  had  known, 
and  remind  us,  with  pardonable  pride,  that  our  family 
name  was  inscribed  among  those  of  the  fearless  signers 
of  our  great  Declaration.  Then  he  would  seem  to  have 
his  own  children  around  him,  and  talk  to,  and  admonish 
us,  as  if.  the  fathers  sat  in  the  places  of  their  sons.  But 
the  mind  was  wearing  away,  and  soon  relapsed  into  in- 
action. He  daily  grew  weaker,  and  I  had  rather  leave  a 
blank  here  for  the  few  sad  weeks  that  preceded  the  first 
day  of  October,  1822." 

The  majestic  relic  of  a  picturesque  age  known 
to  us  only  by  tradition,  lay  dead  for  three  days 
in  the  homestead  he  had  built,  while  the  solemn 
concourse  of  kinspeople  and  distant  friends 
was  collecting  to  attend  his  funeral.  In  dining- 
room,  upper  and   lower   halls  were   set  tables 

"  covered  with  fair  white  linen  on  which  were  displayed 
treasures  of  old  family  silver — large  bowls,  tankards  and 
mugs,  bearing  the  family  coat-of-arms" — writes  the  grand- 
daughter. "  Every  superfluous  ornament  was  removed 
from  the  parlor  and  reception-room,  and  the  family-por- 
traits were  draped  in  black.  .  .  .  About  twelve  o'clock 
the  company  began  to  arrive  ...  the  gentry  from  all 
the  neighboring  country-seats  in  their  state  carriages. 
These  were  ushered  into  the  drawing-rooms.  Then 
came  the  substantial  farmers,  many  from  a  long  distance 
with  wives  and  daughters  ;  last  of  all,  the  tenantry  and 
poorer  neighbors  gathered.  There  was  room  for  all  ; 
none  were  overlooked,  and  one  and  all  looked  sad.     .     . 


230       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

At  one  o'clock  the  first  tables  were  served,  and  the 
others  immediately  after.  It  was  a  motley  assemblage. 
Delicacies  of  every  kind  had  been  provided  for  '  the 
great  folk,'  as  the  servants  styled  our  aristocratic  guests, 
and  they  sat  down  ceremoniously  as  to  a  large  dinner- 
party.    In  the  halls  there  was  more  conviviality.     .     .    . 

"  One  room  only  was  quiet.  The  stillness  of  death 
was  there.  Each  new-comer  had  visited  it,  and  many 
had  stood,  with  bowed  heads  and  grave  countenances, 
looking  on  the  features  of  the  dead. 

"I  shall  always  remember  my  grandfather  lying, 
dressed  as  in  life,  with  punctillious  neatness,  and  looking 
as  if  about  to  rise  and  speak  lovingly  as  he  always  did  to 
us  in  life." 

It  was  a  man,  and  a  master  among  men, 
whom  "  multitudes  of  vehicles  "  followed  to  the 
vault  beneath  the  "  Livingston  Reformed 
Church  of  Linlithgow  "  that  October  day,  when 
hickories  and  maples  were  burning  bright  with 
color,  and  the  grand  oaks  that  gave  name  to 
the  Mansion-house  were  red,  brown  and  dusky- 
purple.  The  American  laird  was  no  petit  maitre, 
incongruous  with  true  dignity  and  republican 
simplicity  as  seem  the  curl-papers  worn  dur- 
ing breakfast-time,  and  the  valet-barber  vho 
brought  curling-tongs,  powder  and  pomatum- 
boxes  for  Mr.  Livingston's  daily  toilette  when 
he  was  in  the  city. 


5 1 

o    ^ 


Oak  Hill  233 

The  quotation  given  just  now  records  graph- 
ically and  tenderly  a  child's  impressions  of  the 
funeral  ceremonies  of  that  date,  and  affords  us 
a  glimpse  of  the  feudal  state  in  which  this  grand 
old  gentleman  lived  and  died. 

He  was  succeeded  at  Oak  Hill  by  his  son, 
Mr.  Herman  Livingston,  who  died  in  1872. 
The  pretty  boy,  who  met  me  on  the  piazza, 
and  seconded  his  mother's  cordial  welcome  as 
I  alighted  at  the  hospitable  door,  is  the  fourth 
of  the  name,  in  direct  line  of  descent,  three  of 
whom  are  still  living. 

The  house  stands  on  the  summit  of  the  hill, 
overlooking  the  river  and  the  back-country, 
white  and  faint-pink  with  orchard  blossoms  in 
the  spring-time.  Upon  the  horizon  roll  and 
tower  the  beautiful  Catskills  ;  century-old  oaks 
enclose  the  dwelling  and  out-buildings ;  the 
well  kept  lawn  slopes  into  teeming  fields. 

The  exterior  of  the  homestead  has  been  re- 
modelled within  a  quarter-century,  at  the  ex- 
pense of  picturesqueness,  the  mansard  roof 
having  taken  the  place  of  steeper  gables. 
Until  this  alteration,  the  servants'  quarters  re- 
mained where  John  Livingston  established 
them — in  the  basement.  There  they  worked, 
lived  and    slept.     To    the  modern  sanitarian, 


234      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

the  gain  in  healthfullness  and  comfort  almost 
compensates  for  the  loss  in  artistic  effect. 
The  walls  are  very  thick  and  built  of  brick 
manufactured  on  the  Manor.  The  wood  used 
in  the  structure  was  hewed  from  the  Livino-- 
ston  woods.  Several  neighboring  farm-houses 
were  made  of  bricks  imported  from  Holland, 
but  our  landed  proprietor  prided  himself 
upon  meeting  domestic  demands  by  home- 
products. 

Within-doors,  the  arrangement  of  the  stairs 
and  rooms  on  the  first  and  second  floors  has 
undergone  no  change.  Deeply  set  windows, 
tall  mantels  with  the  curious  putty  decorations 
our  great-grandmothers  delighted  in  ;  broad 
staircases  with  leisurely  landings,  please  the 
eye  of  the  antiquarian  when  he  can  spare  atten- 
tion for  anything  besides  the  magnificent  old 
"  kaus  "  ("  kaas  "  or  "  cos  ")  which  stands  in  the 
front  hall. 

There  are  whispers  of  a  sacrilegious  period  ; 
a  brief  reign  of  modern  irreverence  that  came 
even  to  Oak  Hill,  during  which  profane  youths 
used  certain  uncomely  portraits  as  targets ; 
when  novelty-loving  women  bartered  bureaux, 
deep-colored  with  age,  for  fashionable  furniture, 
and  presumptuous  cooks  seasoned  sauces  with 


235  THE  OLD  KAUS. 


Oak  Hill  237 

wine  mellowed  by  a  half-century's  keeping  and 
a  three  years'  voyage. 

The  "  kaus,"  a  huge  press,  or  wardrobe,  or 
armoire,  splendid  with  carving,  and  towering 
to  the  hall  ceiling,  has  held  its  place  since  the 
house  was  finished.  It  was  already  ancient 
when  John  Livingston  brought  it  with  other 
household  goods  to  his  new  mansion.  A  noted 
connoisseur  in  antiques  pronounces  the  mate- 
rial "  Swiss  rosewood,"  the  workmanship  of  a 
period  of  at  least  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
old.  Other  interesting  pieces  of  furniture 
are  here,  such  as  pier-glasses  and  tables  of 
ebony  and  gilt,  a  pair  of  folding  card-tables 
which  are  undoubtedly  Chippendales,  massive 
high-post  curtain  bedsteads,  etc., — but  none 
compare  in  venerableness  and  beauty  with  the 
kaus. 

The  Livingston  treasures  in  china  and  sil- 
ver are  notable.  Much  of  the  plate  is  a  direct 
inheritance  from  Robert  the  First,  and  is 
stamped  with  the  family  crest. 

One  tiny  porcelain  pitcher  has  and  deserves 
a  place  of  its  own.  It  is  a  Chinese  "  sacrificial 
cup,"  500  years  old,  and  is  said  to  have  come 
over  from  Holland  with  the  first  Robert 
Livingston.     There  are,  so   assert  experts  in 


238      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

china,  but  four  others  known  to  museums  and 
art-collectors. 

In  the  upper  hall  hangs  the  portrait  of 
Philip  Stanhope,  the  son  of  Lord  Chesterfield, 
the  one  to  whom  the  famous  Letters  were 
addressed.  Robert  Fulton  was  the  painter. 
It  is  perhaps  not  generally  known  that  Fulton 
was  by  profession  an  artist.  The  speculations 
and  experiments  upon  Watt's  theories  respect- 
ing the  use  of  steam  which  led  to  the  construc- 
tion of  the  first  steamboat,  introduced  him 
to  Stanhope  and  led  to  a  lasting  friendship. 
Robert  Fulton's  home  was  at  Staatje,  less 
than  three  miles  below  Oak  Hill.  In  the 
cellar  is  a  huge  stone,  believed  by  the  super- 
stitious neighbors  to  be  enchanted.  No  one 
can  lift  it  and  live. 

The  neighborhood  has  greatly  changed 
within  seventy  years.  The  junketings  and 
feastings  and  brilliant  progresses  from  home- 
stead to  homestead,  irrespective  of  season  or 
weather,  belong  to  an  irrevocable  Past.  But 
the  routine  of  daily  being  and  doing  at  Oak 
Hill  has  still  in  it  striking  (and  the  best)  feat- 
ures of  the  country  life  of  the  English  gentry. 


XI 

THE  PHILIPSE  MANOR-HOUSE 

AMONG  the  last  grants  of  land  in  the  New 
World  to  which  were  affixed  the  joint 
signatures  of  William  and  Mary,  was  one  made 
in  1693  to  Frederick  Philipse  of  their  Majes- 
ties' Province  of  New  York. 

This  grant,  which  was  virtually  a  barony 
under  the  management  and  sway  of  the  mas- 
terful proprietor,  contained  many  thousand 
acres  of  woodland,  mountain,  hillsides  and 
fertile  meadows.  The  land  now  occupied  by 
the  city  of  Yonkers  was  but  a  tithe  of  the  mag- 
nificent estate.  The  rights  ceded  to  Philipse 
in  perpetuity  by  the  royal  grant  included  the 
liberty,  should  he  elect  so  to  do,  to  construct 
a  ferry  or  a  bridge  at  what  was  known  as 
"  Spikendevil  Ferry,"  and  to  collect  toll  from 
passengers.  He  gave  the  name  of  "  King's 
Bridge  "  to  this  thoroughfare. 

239 


240       Some  Colonial  Homestead 

As  he  increased  in  riches,  he  built  for  his 
own  use  and  that  of  his  family  two  notable 
residences,  the  Philipse  Manor-House  at 
Yonkers,  and  Castle  Philipse  at  Sleepy  Hol- 
low in  Tarrytown.  Considerations  of  con- 
venience unknown  to  us  must  have  dictated 
the  choice  of  two  sites  that  were  not  far 
enough  apart,  the  one  from  the  other,  to  offer 
a  decided  change  of  air,  winter  or  summer. 
The  annual,  or  semi-annual  flittings  from 
Manor-House  to  Castle  were  regulated  by 
other  causes  than  those  that  now  close  New 
York  houses  in  June,  and  send  the  occupants 
across  the  ocean,  or  to  mountain-tops  hundreds 
of  feet  above  the  sea-level. 

Both  of  the  Philipse  homesteads  were  large 
and  handsome.  The  parks  were  stocked  with 
tame  deer,  as  in  Old  England.  The  extensive 
gardens  were  laid  out  and  planted  in  accord- 
ance with  formal  ideas  brought  from  his  native 
Holland  by  the  founder  of  the  American 
family.  From  England  and  from  the  Conti- 
nent were  imported,  besides  bulbs,  seeds,  and 
shrubs,  ornamental  shade-trees  that,  taking 
kindly  to  the  hospitable  soil,  transformed  the 
wilderness  into  plantations  which  were  the 
wonder  of  the  simple  neighbors. 


The  Philipse  Manor-House       241 

None  but  negro  servants  were  employed  in 
the  house  and  about  the  grounds,  but  the 
retainers  and  tenants  of  the  successful  planter 
and  trader,  whom  men  styled  "  the  Dutch 
millionaire,"  were  many  and,  in  one  way  and 
another,  brought  him  great  gain.  From  the 
records  of  a  prosperous  life  that  have  come 
down  to  us,  we  gather  that  he  did  his  duty  by 
kindred  and  community,  not  forgetting  his 
highly-respectable  self,  and  took  a  cool,  gentle- 
manly interest  in  public  affairs.  He  sat  as 
magistrate  in  his  barony  at  stated  times  and 
seasons,  hearing  evidence  and  dispensing  jus- 
tice as  seemed  right  in  his  and  in  his  brother- 
magistrates'  eyes,  and  upholding  the  dominies 
and  regular  services  of  the  Reformed  Dutch 
Church  in  America.1 

His  nest  of  ease  was  rudely  stirred  at  length, 
and  trouble  came  from  an  unexpected  quarter. 

Richard  Coote,  Earl  of  Bellamont  (or  Belb- 
mont,  as  American  chronicles  spell  it),  was 
appointed  Governor  of  New  England  and 
New  York  in  1695.  He  filled  his  brief  term 
of  office  (ended  by  his  death   in    1701)   with 

1  The  list  of  church-members  and  their  residences,  kept  by  Rev. 

Henricus  Selyus  of  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church  in  Brauwers  Straat 

(now  part  of  Stone  St.),  included    in  1686,    "  De  Heer   Frederick 

Philipse." 
16 


242       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

clamorings  against  the  landed  proprietors 
whose  "  great  grants  "  gave  them  the  state  and 
wealth  of  feudal  lords  in  a  country  which  it 
was  to  the  interest  of  London  emigrant  and 
trading  companies  to  have  settled  by  farmers, 
lumbermen,  and  miners.  The  men  who  lived 
"  in  vassalage  "  under  Livingstons  and  Philipses, 
Schuylers  and  Van  Cortlandts,  might  bring 
wealth  to  their  landlords  and  employers.  They 
did  not  enrich  the  Mother  Country. 

In  pursuance  of  a  policy  that  was,  in  the 
settlers'  eyes,  rank  agrarianism,  he  shaped 
and  sent  to  England  for  approval  a  bill  restrict- 
ing any  one  person  from  holding  more  than 
one  thousand  acres  of  land. 

When  his  confidential  friend,  James  Gra- 
hame,  Attorney-General  of  the  Province,  sug- 
gested that,  in  addition  to  the  proposed  bill, 
one  be  prepared  advising  the  partition  of 
grants  already  existing,  naming  two  "  as  an 
essay  to  see  how  the  rest  should  be  borne," 
honest  Bellomont  wrote  home  that  he  would 
not  advise  the  measure  unless  the  rule  should 
be  made  general  and  "others  share  the  same 
fate."  Among  the  "  others  "  were  grants  made 
to  both  the  Philipses,  father  and  son. 

Although   the   personal  relations  of    Bello- 


The  Philipse  Manor-House       243 


mont  and  Frederick  Philipse  remained  out- 
wardly unchanged,  the  sting  left  in  the  mind 
of  the  Lord  of  the  Manor  by  the  attempt  to 
disintegrate  his  estate,  rankled  and  burned. 
The  open  rupture  came  when  Bellomont  inti- 
mated that  Philipse  had  profited  by  the  noto- 
rious William  Kidd's  piratical  enterprises. 

Frederick  Philipse,  Robert  Livingston  and 
others  sent  liquors,  gun- 
powder and  arms  in 
their  own  ships  through 
what  then  corresponded 
with  the  clearance  house 
in  New  York,  to  Mada- 
gascar, and  the  same 
vessels  returned  in  good 
time  laden  with  East 
Indian  goods.  "Arab- 
ian gold  and  East  India 
goods  were  everywhere  common."  Rum  that 
cost  two  shillings  a  gallon  in  New  York  was  so 
vastly  improved  in  flavor  by  the  sea-voyage 
that,  when  it  reached  Madagascar,  it  sold  for 
three  pounds  a  gallon.  The  pipe  of  Madeira 
that  could  be  bought  in  New  York  for  nineteen 
pounds,  brought  in  Madagascar,  presumably 
because  of  the  mellowing  wrought  by  the  same 


Trederik  Philip  seEs  37 


PHILIPSE  COAT  OF  ARMS. 


244       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

sea-air  and  much  rolling,  three  hundred  pounds. 
These  were  tempting  profits  even  to  Dutch 
millionaires  and  Reformed  Dutch  church-mem- 
bers. Since  the  island  of  Madagascar  was 
neither  the  Indies  nor  El  Dorado,  people  who 
were  not  ship-owners  or  millionaires  began  to 
make  inconvenient  inquiries.  Talk  of  reform 
troubled  the  air,  and  nobody  talked  more 
loudly  than  the  slow-witted,  honest  Governor. 
His  final  demand  of  those  he  believed  to  be 
as  upright  as  himself,  was  reasonable — or 
seemed  to  be.  Philipse,  Van  Cortlandt,  Liv- 
ingston, Nicholas  Bayard,  et  a/s,  were  to  give 
their  personal  guarantee  that  their  ships  should 
not  trade  with  the  pirates  with  whom  the  seas 
about  Madagascar  were  a  popular  resort. 

Disinterested  travellers  brought  home  wild 
tales  of  the  island  itself.  It  was  a  nest  of 
buccaneers,  they  said,  who  had  married,  from 
generation  to  generation,  the  dark-skinned 
daughters  of  the  natives,  and  their  descend- 
ants plied  no  trade  but  that  of  freebooters. 
Their  vessels  hovered  like  sharks  about  the 
watery  highway  binding  the  West  to  the  East, 
and  preyed  indiscriminately  upon  merchant- 
men of  whatever  nationality.  Yet,  five  out  of 
every  ten  ships  that  sailed  from  the  harbor  of 


The  Philipse  Manor-House       245 

New  York  were  bound  for  this  sea-girt  Ex- 
change, if  the  reports  of  the  Governor's  agents 
were  to  be  relied  upon.  Said  the  ingenuous 
Earl,  confident  that  the  thought  had  never 
occurred  to  his  astute  Holland  friends:  .  .  . 
"  Such  trading  is  not  piracy,  perhaps,  but  it  is 
to  be  feared  that  much  of  the  merchandise 
brought  to  New  York  may  have  been  obtained 
from  pirates." 

Had  not  the  gentle  suggestion  touched  the 
pocket-nerves  of  those  to  whom  it  was  ad- 
dressed, it  must  have  appealed  to  their  sense 
of  the  absurd.  It  was  notorious  that,  as  one 
historian  puts  it,  "the  whole  coast  of  America 
from  Rhode  Island  to  the  Carolinas  was 
honeycombed "  with  places  of  stowage  for 
smuggled  and  stolen  cargoes.  Sometimes, 
and  not  seldom,  the  freebooters  who  made  use 
of  these,  visited  New  York  in  person,  without 
waiting  to  be  summoned  by  the  solid  men  who 
carried  the  collection-plates  on  Sunday  up  and 
down  the  aisles  of  churches  presided  over  by 
Dominies  Selyus  and  Everardus  Bogardus. 

One  of  the  most  notable  of  the  predatory 
guild,  Thomas  Tew  by  name,  was  a  particular 
friend  of  Governor  Fletcher.  He  was  re- 
ceived at  the  Governor  s  house,  was  taken  on 


246       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

an  airing  in  the  official  coach — perhaps  on  the 
fashionable  "fourteen  miles  around" — and 
was  the  recipient  from  the  great  man's  hands 
of  a  tract  upon  "  The  Vile  Habit  of  Swearing." 
Which  incident  would  go  to  prove  that  the 
distinction  and  respectability  of  his  companion 
in  the  drive  were  not  sufficient  to  restrain  the 
knight  of  the  black  flag  from  indulgence  in  the 
seamanlike  habit. 

Bellomont's  mild  intimation  was  hotly  re- 
sented by  his  colleagues.  He  was  accused  oi 
"  vilely  slandering  eminent  and  respectable 
persons,"  and  his  reputation,  thus  branded, 
might  have  been  transmitted  to  us  but  for 
the  fiasco  of  the  Kidd  trial  and  sentence. 

The  story  of  Captain  Kidd  has  a  humorous 
side  to  the  historian  who  sees  it  down  a  vista 
two  hundred  and  one  years  in  depth.  It  was 
sufficiently  serious  to  separate  the  chief  men 
of  the  New  Colony  and  to  drive  the  Gov- 
ernor frantic. 

Robert  Livingston  had  introduced  Kidd  to 
Bellomont  as  "a  bold  and  honest  man,  who, 
he  believed,  was  fitter  than  any  other  to  be 
employed  in  such  service "  as  the  zealous 
Governor  demanded — namely  the  suppression 
of  piracy  on   the  high  seas.      Livingston  had 


The  Philipse  Manor-House       247 

known  the  sea-captain  for  years  ;  in  fact,  Kidd 
had  sailed  the  trader's  vessels  for  him  more 
than  once  or  twice,  and  acquitted  himself 
most  satisfactorily. 

Accordingly,  Kidd  was  put  in  charge  of  an 
armed  privateer  to  hunt  down  and  punish  the 
freebooters  under  a  Royal  Commission.  Such 
men  as  Shrewsbury,  Somers,  Romney,  Orford, 
and  Bellomont,  paid  the  expenses  of  the  expe- 
dition and  were  to  share  two  thirds  of  the 
spoils  taken  from  captured  pirate  vessels. 
The  remaining  third  was  to  go  to  the  King. 
Kidd,  in  a  "  good  sailer  of  about  thirty  guns 
and  150  men,"  sailed  from  London  to  New 
York  in  May  1696,  and  in  due  time  from  New 
York  to  Madagascar.  The  privateersman  had 
unusual  intelligence  and  breeding  for  one  in 
his  rank  of  life,  and  when  the  news  reached 
England  and  America  that,  seduced  by  the 
attractions  of  a  lawless  life,  he  had  turned 
pirate  himself,  taken  unarmed  merchantmen, 
murdered  crews,  and  seized  upon  cargoes,  his 
backers  were  for  a  while  incredulous,  then 
confounded. 

His  defence,  when  he  was  arrested  upon 
his  return  to  Boston,  was  that  he  had  been 
forced  by  a  mutinous   crew  into   piracy,   and 


248       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

had  not  profited  personally  by  his  evil  ways. 
He  was  executed,  without  confessing  his  guilt, 
or  implicating  any  of  the  gentlemen  who  fitted 
out  his  vessel  and  indorsed  his  character. 
In  spite  of  his  magnanimous  silence,  more 
than  one  colonial  magnate  was  openly  accused 
of  having  been  cognizant  of  Kidd's  purposes 
and  having  enriched  himself  by  his  iniquity. 
The  names  of  Robert  Livingston,  the  Philipses, 
and,  oddly  enough,  Bellomont  himself,  did  not 
escape  the  smirch.  Scotch  Robert  seems  to 
have  borne  the  aspersion  with  characteristic 
phlegm  until  Bellomont's  Lieutenant  pushed 
the  conviction  after  his  chief's  death  in  1701, 
and  actually  suspended  Livingston  from  divers 
and  remunerative  offices.  The  story  of  Oak 
Hill  tells  the  sequel. 

There  is  no  evidence  to  show  that  regular 
proceedings  were  ever  instituted  against  Fred- 
erick (1)  Philipse  or  that  Bellomont's  suspi- 
cions were  more  than  hinted, — perhaps  in  the 
heat  of  his  indignation  at  the  preposterous 
connection  of  his  own  name  with  that  of  the 
criminal  whom  he  had  innocently  aided  and 
abetted.  He  made  no  secret  of  his  animosity 
against  Livingston  who  had  got  him  into  the 
ugly  scrape.      Even  when  Robert    Livingston 


The  Philipse  Manor-House       249 

appeared  boldly  before  the  Governor  and 
Council  and  acquitted  himself  of  all  and  every 
unlawful  and  treacherous  design,  Bellomont 
did  not  withdraw  the  charges.  He  went  so 
far  as  to  declare  his  intention  of  removing 
the  false  friend  from  the  Council,  a  design 
frustrated  by  his  own  sudden  death. 

Bellomont's  allusion  to  the  possibility  that 
Frederick  Philipse's  coffers  were  the  fuller 
for  the  booty  never  accounted  for  by  Kidd, 
was  unpardonable  in  the  eyes  of  the  Lord 
of  the  Manor. 

"  With  characteristic  reticence  and  cold 
resentment  Philipse  retired  from  any  further 
part  in  public  affairs,"  writes  the  historian  of 
the  quarrel. 

The  sentence  is  tersely  significant.  He 
could  do  better  without  the  government  than 
the  government  could  do  without  his  counsels 
and  his  millions.  An  opulent  Cincinnatus,  he 
lived,  henceforward,  upon  his  estates,  enjoyed 
his  family  and  directed  his  foresters,  millers, 
and  husbandmen  to  their  content  and  his  own 
emolument  until  his  death  on  December  23, 
1  702.  Robert  Livingston  outlived  him  twenty 
years. 

Philip,  the    son    of    Frederick  (1)    Philipse 


250       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

had  died  in  1700,  and  the  Manor-House  be- 
came, at  the  demise  of  the  late  Lord,  the 
property  of  his  grandson  namesake,  Fred- 
erick Philipse  the  Second. 

Bellomont's  craze  for  the  subversion  of 
manorial  rights  and  for  humbling  the  arro- 
gance of  largely  landed  proprietors,  died  with 
him.  The  River — always  spoken  of  as  if 
there  were  no  other  in  North  America — saw 
brave  days  for  the  next  half-century.  The 
Livingstons  at  Oak  Hill  and  Clermont,  and 
the  Van  Cortlandts  in  their  Manor-House  at 
Croton,  were  suzerains,  each  in  his  own  princi- 
pality. Eva  Philipse,  the  daughter  of  Fred- 
erick (1)  had  married  a  Van  Cortlandt,  thus 
cementing  the  bond  of  interest  and  friend- 
ship already  existing  between  the  households. 
The  De  Peysters  lived  in  ducal  splendor  in 
their  Queen  Street  Mansion,  the  finest  in 
New  York  City.  It  had  a  frontage  of  eighty 
feet  upon  the  street,  was  sixty  feet  deep,  and 
three  lofty  stories  in  height.  There  were 
nine  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  silverware, 
and  a  wealth  of  cut-glass  and  china  that  cost 
quite  as  much,  in  use  in  the  hospitable 
abode,  so  we  read  in  the  family  annals  ;  and  a 
De  Peyster  who    was    made    Mayor  of    New 


^-"•>-^ 


The  Philipse  Manor-House       253 

York  was  reckoned  the  handsomest  man  in 
that  city. 

The  Philipse  Manor-House  kept  fully 
abreast  of  its  contemporaries  in  the  march  of 
luxury.  Frederick  Second  had  come  to  a 
ready-made  fortune  and  assured  position,  with 
nothing  to  do  but  to  enjoy  both.  Warned, 
perhaps,  by  his  father's  experience  not  to  mix 
himself  up  in  politics,  or  indifferent  to  the 
statecraft  of  what  was  hardly  more  than  the 
adopted  country  of  one  whose  mother  was  an 
Englishwoman,  and  who  had  been  educated  in 
England  himself,  he  took  no  public  office  and 
devoted  his  abundant  energies  to  the  improve- 
ment of  his  property.  The  mansion,  con- 
sidered palatial  in  his  grandfathers  day,  was 
trebled  in  size.  Sixteen  Grecian  columns  sup- 
ported the  eaves  of  the  porticoed  wings,  and 
the  roof  of  the  central  building  was  capped  by 
a  massive  balustrade  forming  a  spacious  obser- 
vatory. Workmen  were  brought  from  abroad 
to  decorate  the  interior.  The  walls  were 
panelled  in  rare  woods,  and  the  ceilings  were 
fretted  into  arabesque  patterns.  The  marble 
inner  mantels  were  sculptured  to  order  in 
Italy,  we  are  told,  and  imported  through  an 
English    firm.     The    main    entrance-hall   was 


254      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

fourteen  feet  wide  and  ran  the  whole  depth  of 
the  house.  From  this  a  broad  staircase  with 
mahogany  balusters  swept  upward  to  noble 
chambers  that  were  filled  for  the  greater  part 
of  the  year  to  their  fullest  capacity.  In  the 
attics  there  were  accommodations  for  more  than 
fifty  servants. 

The  terraced  lawn,  studded  with  imported 
trees  and  clumps  of  ornamental  shrubbery, 
sloped  down  to  and  beyond  the  post-road  from 
New  York  to  Albany.  The  family  and  guests 
of  the  Manor- House,  seated  in  portico  and 
grove,  saw  rolling  along  under  the  trees  lining 
the  thoroughfare,  round-bodied  chariots,  each 
drawn  by  four  horses,  belonging  to  the  neigh- 
boring gentry,  and  government  post-chaises 
and  coaches  with  uniformed  guards  on  top 
and  gayly-jacketed  postillions  upon  the  leaders. 
Conspicuous  among  the  fine  equipages  was  the 
splendid  four-in-hand  of  my  Lady  Philipse, 
nee  Joanna  Brockholls,  whose  father  (an  Eng- 
lishman) was  at  one  time  Lieutenant-Governor 
of  New  York.  She  drove  her  four  jet-black 
stallions  with  her  own  strong,  supple  hands, 
winning  and  maintaining  the  reputation  of 
being  the  most  dashing  whip  of  the  Province, 
until  she  was  pitched  headlong  from  the  box, 


The  Philipse  Manor-House       255 

one  day  early  in  the  seventies,  and  killed 
instantly. 

In  1745,  George  Clinton,  second  son  of  the 
Earl  of  Clinton,  formerly  Admiral  in  the  Brit- 
ish Navy,  then  Governor  of  New  Foundland, 
and  from  1741-1751,  Governor  of  the  Prov- 
ince of  New  York,  held  a  conference  in  Albany 
with  sixteen  sachems  of  the  Six  Nations. 
The  whilom  Admiral  had  a  busy  bee  in  his 
bonnet  in  the  question  of  invading  French 
Canada  with  the  help  of  his  Indian  allies. 
The  conference  came  to  nothing,  and  the 
harassed  official,  on  his  way  down  the  river, 
spent  several  days  at  Philipse  Manor.  A 
pleasanter  method  of  getting  rid  of  care  and 
chagrin  could  hardly  be  devised.  His  host 
was  a  Knickerbocker  edition  of  William  Evelyn 
Byrd  in  wealth,  social  influence,  courtliness  of 
manner,  and  hospitality,  albeit  Byrd's  inferior 
in  scholarly  attainments  and  political  prestige. 

His  English  education  and  family  associa- 
tions bore  fruit  in  his  preference  for  the  Epis- 
copal, above  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church  of 
which  his  forefathers  had  been  zealous  sup- 
porters. His  last  will  and  testament  provided 
for  the  erection  of  St.  John's  Episcopal  Church 
upon  a  suitable  site  of  his  estate.      He  donated, 


256      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

also,  two  hundred  and  fifty  acres  for  a  glebe 
farm,  and  a  handsome  sum  of  money  where- 
with to  build  a  parsonage  upon  the  same. 

His  son  and  successor  Frederick  (3)  was  a 
graduate  of  King's  College,  New  York,  now 
Columbia  University.  Like  his  father,  he  was 
"  a  distinguished  ornament  to  polite  society," 
with  no  political  aspirations,  and  was  well  con- 
tent to  keep  up  in  feudal  state  the  hereditary 
estates  and  to  spend  the  money  his  great- 
grandfather had  made.  In  politics  he  would 
have  liked  to  be  a  trimmer,  and  to  avoid  with 
graceful  diplomacy  the  necessity  of  telling  the 
truth  as  to  his  (perfectly  natural)  royalist  pro- 
clivities. The  way  of  the  neutralist  became 
harder  and  harder  as  the  stir  of  the  times 
waxed  in  tumult.  The  Lord  of  Philipse 
Manor,  nevertheless,  played  his  part  so  well 
that  when  Washington  and  his  staff  were  his 
guests  for  seven  or  eight  days  just  before  the 
battle  of  White  Plains,  October  28,  1776,  no 
suspicions  of  his  loyalty  to  the  popular  cause 
marred  the  comfort  of  the  visit. 

The  south-west  chamber  of  the  mansion  was 
occupied  by  Washington  during  this  visit.  The 
sight-seer  of  to-day  looks  upon  the  unchanged 
shell  of   the  room.     The  four    deeply  embra- 


The  Philipse  Manor-House       257 

sured  windows  are  filled  with  the  small-paned 
sashes  through  which  the  Chief  looked  out 
upon  the  Hudson  and  the  Palisades.  The 
fire-place,  sunken  fully  three  feet  into  the 
chimney,  is  lined  with  old  Dutch  tiles,  blue- 
and-white,  that  tell  now,  as  they  told  then,  the 
story  of  Zaccheus'  tree  and  Moses'  broken 
tables  of  the  law,  varied  by  Holland  wind-mills. 
At  the  very  back  a  movable  panel  of  sheet- 
iron  is  embossed  with  Elijah  and  the  ravens. 
It  bears  the  date  1 760.  The  grave  eyes  of 
the  Colonial  Moses  must  often  have  rested 
upon  it  while  he  mused  upon  the  darkening 
fortunes  of  the  Infant  Republic.  Did  a  som- 
bre picture  of  possible  abandonment  and  exile 
for  himself,  and  a  Cherith  unvisited  by  miracu- 
lous winged  sutlers,  arise  between  him  and  the 
rude  bas-relief  in  the  October  midnights  when 
the  river  winds  moaned  without  to  the  drifting 
leaves  ? 

A  secret  passage  led  from  this  room — some 
think  through  the  movable  chimney-back — to 
an  underground  retreat  and  a  tunnelled  pas- 
sage to  the  river. 

Frederick  (3)  Philipse  had  three  charming 
sisters  one  of  whom  (Susan)  married  Colonel 
Beverley   Robinson,    a   son  of    the    Robinson 


258      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

who  succeeded  Gooch  as  Governor  of  Virginia. 
Colonel  Robinson  had  fought  under  Wolfe  at 
Quebec,  and  holding,  as  he  did,  a  commission 
in  the  Royal  Army,  sympathized  heartily  with 
the  parent  Government.  At  the  outbreak  of 
the  Revolutionary  War,  he  so  far  sanctioned 
rebellion  as  to  insist  practically  upon  the  en- 
couragement of  home  industries  by  clothing 
his  household  in  homespun,  and  repudiated 
taxed  tea  and  other  foreign  luxuries.  When 
pushed  hard  for  a  declaration  of  his  principles, 
he  could  not  add  to  this  outward  conformity 
to  colonial  usages  the  assertion  that  he  be- 
lieved in  the  open  separation  of  the  provinces 
from  the  crown.  The  time  for  half-way  meas- 
ures had  passed,  and  "trimming"  was  so  far 
out  of  fashion  that  he  was,  early  in  the  war, 
obliged  to  leave  his  beautiful  country-seat, 
"  Beverley  " — a  present  to  his  wife  from  her 
father,  the  second  Frederick  Philipse — and 
remove,  first,  to  the  city  of  New  York,  then 
to  England. 

His  son,  Frederick  Robinson,  was  knighted 
for  gallant  service  in  the  British  army,  and 
sent  back  to  America  as  Governor  of  Upper 
Canada  in  18 15.  There  is  a  pretty  story  of  a 
visit  paid  by  him  to  his  birth-place,  Beverley, 


FIRE-PLACE  IN  THE       WASHINGTON  CHAMBER"  OF  PHILIPSE   MANOR-HOUSE. 
259 


The  Philipse  Manor-House       261 

and  how  the  stout  heart  of  the  soldier  melted 
into  tears  at  sight  of  the  remembered  beauties 
of  his  boyhood's  home. 

A  second  son  of  Beverley  Robinson, — Wil- 
liam Henry, — was  likewise  knighted.  His  wife 
was  an  American  beauty,  the  daughter  of 
Cortlandt  Skinner  of  New  Jersey. 

Mary  Philipse  is  better  known  in  romantic 
history  than  her  sisters  by  reason  of  the 
romance  connecting  her  name  with  that  of 
George  Washington.  In  1756,  the  young 
Virginia  Colonel,  then  commanding  on  the 
frontier  of  the  British  provinces  in  America, 
made  a  journey  from  his  native  state  to 
Boston  on  military  business.  While  in  New 
York  City  he  was  the  guest  of  his  compatriot, 
Colonel  Beverley  Robinson,  at  the  town  house 
of  the  latter.  Mary  Philipse  was  staying  with 
her  sister  Susan  at  the  time.  Her  bright  eyes 
are  said  to  have  wrought  such  mischief  upon  the 
affections  of  the  distinguished  visitor  as  had 
another  Mary's  eight  years  before,  when,  as  a 
raw-boned  Westmoreland  lad,  Washington 
met  the  beautiful  sister  of  Sally  (Cary)  Fair- 
fax at  the  Fairfax  homestead  of  Belvoir,  in 
Virginia.  Some  say  that  the  Maries  were 
alike  in  their  non-appreciation  of  the  love-lorn 


262       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

wooer.  Others  are  of  opinion  that,  in  Miss 
Philipse's  case,  the  affair  never  came  to  a  head, 
and  that  in  the  encounter  of  girlish  coquetry 
and  Southern  gallantry,  "  nobody  was  hurt." 

She  knew  her  own  mind  and  acted  upon  it 
when  Roger  Morris — who  had  borne  arms 
under  Braddock  and  fought  side  by  side  with 
Washington  at  the  fateful  battle  of  Mononga- 
hela,  on  the  ninth  day  of  July,  1755 — sued  for 
her  hand.  It  is  quite  within  the  range  of 
probability,  and  the  coincidence  that  makes 
up  the  most  dramatic  situations  of  human  life, 
that  the  two  young  men  may  have  fought  the 
battle  over  again  in  Beverley  Robinson's  New 
York  house. 

The  marriage  of  Mary  Philipse  and  Roger 
Morris  was  celebrated  with  great  splendor  at 
Philipse  Manor  in  1758.  Shortly  afterward, 
the  bridegroom  set  about  building  upon  Har- 
lem Heights  what  was  afterward  known  as 
Fort  Washington,  and  later,  as  the  Jumel 
House.  In  1776,  the  Morrises,  being  Roy- 
alists, were  driven  from  their  elegant  home  by 
the  advance  of  the  American  forces  under 
General  Washington.  The  military  encamp- 
ment on  Harlem  Heights  followed  hard  upon 
the  flight  of   the  owners  of    the  mansion   to 


MANTEL  AND  SECTION  OF  CEILING  IN   DRAWING-ROOM  OF  PHILIPSE  MANOR-HOUSE. 
263 


The  Philipse  Manor-House       265 

Beverley  which  was  still  occupied  by  the 
Robinsons.  Washington's  headquarters  were 
in  the  deserted  Harlem  house. 

Another  irony  of  fate,  at  which  the  grim 
beldam  herself  must  have  smiled,  came  about 
near  the  same  date.  Mrs.  Roger  Morris  had 
inherited  from  a  bachelor  uncle  an  extensive 
tract  of  New  York  lands,  including  Lake 
Mahopac.  It  was  her  custom  to  spend  a 
month  or  six  weeks  of  each  summer  there, 
before  and  after  her  marriage,  living  and 
working  among  her  humble  tenants.  Her 
home  was  in  a  log-hut  built  as  a  hunting-lodge 
by  her  uncle,  and  she  attended  church  in  the 
loft  of  the  "Red  Mill"  belonging  to  the 
Philipses.  The  spirit  and  conduct  of  these 
vacations  foreshadowed  the  College  Settle- 
ments and  Rivington  Street  Homes  of  to- 
day. 

This  same  Red  Mill  became  a  store-house 
for  the  commissary  supplies  of  the  American 
army,  and  Washington  passed  more  than  one 
night  in  the  lodge  that  had  so  often  sheltered 
the  fair  head  of  his  putative  Dulcinea. 

In  1779,  Frederick  (3)  Mary  Morris's 
brother,  was  formally  attainted  of  treason  and 
his  manorial    estates  were    confiscated.     The 


266      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

same  catastrophe  befell  Beverley  and  other  of 
the  Robinsons'  possessions.  I  cannot  refrain 
from  relating  in  connection  with  Beverley  an 
incident  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  the  im- 
portance and  dramatic  intensity  of  which  have 
had  but  a  passing  comment  from  historians. 

When  Arnold,  then  in  command  of  West 
Point,  met  Washington,  Hamilton,  and  Lafay- 
ette in  conference  at  King's  Ferry,  down  the 
river,  April  i  7,  1 780,  he  had  in  his  pocket,  or 
so  he  alleged,  a  letter  from  "  Colonel  Beverley 
Robinson's  agent,"  relative  to  the  confiscation 
of  his  client's  country-seat,  and  begging  that 
he  might  have  an  interview  with  General  Ar- 
nold on  the  subject,  under  the  protection  of  a 
flag-of-truce. 

Hamilton's  clear  legal  mind  had  the  answer 
ready  by  the  time  Arnold  ceased  speaking. 

The  question  was  one  for  a  civil  court,  and 
not  for  a  military  commission,  he  said,  con- 
cisely, and  put  an  end  to  the  discussion. 

Lafayette,  moved  perhaps  by  the  discom- 
fiture which  Arnold  could  not  wholly  conceal, 
tried  to  turn  the  matter  off  with  a  jest. 

"  Since  you  are  in  correspondence  with  the 
enemy,  General  Arnold," — in  his  French  accent 
and  in  his  most  debonaire  manner — "  will  you 


The  Philipse  Manor-House       267 

have  the  kindness  to  inquire  of  them  what  has 
become  of  the  French  squadron  we  have  been 
looking  for  since  many  days  ?  " 

Had  the  petition  of  Colonel  Robinson's 
"  agent  "  as  presented  by  Arnold,  been  granted, 
the  interview  with  Andre  would  have  been  held 
under  a  flag-of-truce  and  by  permission  of  the 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  American  armies. 
Washington  sent  word  a  few  hours  in  advance 
of  his  arrival,  that  he  would  breakfast  with 
General  and  Mrs.  Arnold  at  Beverley  on  the 
very  day  secretly  appointed  by  Arnold  for  the 
passage  of  General  Clinton's  ship  up  the  river 
and  the  surrender  of  West  Point.  Before 
Washington  reached  the  house,  word  of  Andre's 
capture  was  brought  to  the  traitor  and  he  made 
his  escape.  Andre  was  taken  as  a  prisoner, 
first  to  Beverley — then  to  Tappan  where  he 
was  executed. 

In  1785,  the  confiscated  Philipse  Manor- 
House  tract  was  cut  up  into  lots  and  sold  by 
the  State  of  New  York.  The  mansion  and 
grounds  were  bought  by  Cornelius  P.  Low,  a 
wealthy  citizen  of  the  fast-growing  town  on 
Manhattan  Island.  He  never  occupied  it. 
The  purchase  was  either  a  freak  of  fancy  or  a 
speculation.     The    place    was    sold    over  and 


268      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

over  again  in  the  next  fifty  years.  The  longest 
tenancy  by  any  one  family  was  twenty-nine 
years.  It  was  at  last  bought  by  the  town  of 
Yonkers  and  converted  into  a  City  Hall. 

A  tablet  in  the  front  hall  states  that  the 
house  Was  built  in  1682  ;  was  created  Manor 
of  Philipseburg  in  1693;  confiscated  to  the 
U.  S.  Government  in  1779,  and  sold  by  the 
same  in  1785  ;  that  it  was  occupied  as  a  private 
residence  until  the  town  of  Yonkers  bought  it 
in  1868,  became  the  City  Hall  in  1872,  and 
that  a  Bi-centennial  Celebration  was  held  here 
in  1882.  The  inscription  outlines  the  history 
of  the  venerable  structure  which  is  still  in  ex- 
cellent preservation.  The  immense  front-door 
— cut  in  two,  half-way  up,  after  the  Dutch  fash- 
ion revived  by  the  architects  of  modern  subur- 
ban villas — swings  upon  the  same  hinges  as 
when  the  clumsy  wrought  iron  latch,  a  foot 
long,  was  lifted  by  the  hand  of  the  second 
Frederick  in  his  goings-out  and  comings-in, 
and  the  wide  stairs,  with  the  twisted  mahogany 
balusters,  echoed  to  the  high-heeled  shoes  of 
pretty  Mary  Philipse  as  she  paced  slowly  down 
to  her  bridal. 

She  married  Roger  Morris  in  the  drawing- 
room  to  the  left  of  the  wide  Dutch  door  with 


MANTEL  AND  MIRROR  OF  SECOND-STORY-FRONT  ROOM  !N  PHILIPSE  MANOR-HOUSE. 
169 


The  Philipse  Manor-House       271 

the  fan-light  on  top.  The  ceiling  is  elabo- 
rately decorated  in  the  much-esteemed  "  putty- 
work  "  of  those  times,  which  is  also  a  popular 
fad  of  ours.  The  four  medallion  bas-reliefs 
are  said  to  be  portraits,  but  nobody  knows  of 
what  members  of  the  family.  Figures  of 
graces  playing  upon  musical  instruments,  strut- 
ting roosters,  and  divers  sorts  of  flowers  and 
fruits,  make  up  a  pleasing  collection  of  sub- 
jects, albeit  incongruous.  The  wooden  mantel 
is  hand-carved  and  supported  by  a  fluted  pillar 
at  each  end.  Across  the  hall  is  the  dining- 
room.  The  oak  wainscoting  has  been  re- 
moved from  the  sides  and  from  one  end.  At 
the  upper  end  it  has  been  retained  and  is  orna- 
mented by  a  medallion  portrait  of  Washington. 
However  wild  may  have  been  the  dreams  of 
the  original  as  he  sat  at  meat  in  the  long  room 
with  his  courtly  host,  they  certainly  did  not 
comprise  the  possibility  that  the  manorial  ban- 
quet-hall would  ever  boast  of  his  likeness  as 
the  chief  adornment. 

Above  the  dining-room  is  the  Common 
Council  Chamber  of  the  city  of  Yonkers.  The 
partitions  of  five  bedrooms  were  removed  to 
give  the  required  length  to  the  official  quarters. 
The  oaken  beams  taken  out  in  the  alteration 


272       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

were  converted  into  desks  and  seats  for  the 
use  of  the  councilmen. 

"  And  many  a  saw  and  plane  were  broken 
on  the  seasoned  wood,"  says  the  intelligent 
janitor  who  shows  the  building.  "  It  was  al- 
most as  hard  as  iron." 

In  a  corner  lies  an  unexploded  shell,  fired 
from  an  English  vessel  and  dug  up  in  the 
grounds  of  the  Manor-House  several  years  ago. 

Above  the  fine  mantel  of  the  large  front-room 
in  the  second  story  are  carved  the  three  feath- 
ers that  have  been  the  coat-of-arms  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales  since  the  blind  old  King  of 
Bohemia  left  his  crest  with  his  dead  body  upon 
the  field  of  Crecy.  On  both  sides  of  the  man- 
tel-mirror run  exquisite  carvings  in  wood  of 
vines,  grapes,  pomegranates,  flowers,  and  birds. 
The  cornice  of  the  room,  like  that  of  the  draw- 
ing-room, is  of  wood  and  cunningly  carved  into 
a  toothed  border. 

Back  of  this  chamber  is  the  southwestern 
room  already  described  in  which  Washington 
slept  while  a  guest  here. 

A  curious  inscription,  framed  and  hung  at 
the  end  nearest  the  door,  is  copied  from  a  tab- 
let in  Chester  Cathedral,  England,  where 
Frederick  Philipse  is  buried. 


ick   Phil  if. •c*E/{nxw,L*t«  ..f   tke 

Province    of     New    Yurk  ;  A  Geu^leuutt  luWhoia 
1h<-   \  iriors    focial     domeffic   and     Reliffioirs 

Vtctvu  M»re  einini'nily\nite<l.Theluif<n-m 
K. mii  ii.l.      of    His     coudvci    couuuan.de  A  the 
j      Efi.o.    of  otters ;  WkiJft  tke  Benevolence  of  His 
Heart,  and  Gen<lea«i>  of  Hi»  Mannar*  fecirred 

i  i*«ir  Love,fuudy  .i  ft  aci«<lto  lis  Sovereign 
Alii)   the    Briti.sb    (  onft  if  vl  iou,He  ouuoscd,,!  i 
file    H  j  2  a  i  <1  of  His  Ltf e  ,  the  late  Rebellion  in 
V>rth  A  merir a-,ajtd  fur  fife  Faitbital  dnuh.-mf'' 
|     of  His  Bet  j  -to  His,  King*  and  CocmtrjrHi-'was 
:  Proscribed,  and  His  Eftate  one  of  theLarj>e.d  iu 
\'*w  York ,  coafrfcate d,  bj  ih<t  lirrped  Losfiiia  ti..u 
of  ihni   Province  .Wkeu  tke  British  Troopww 
wif  hdrawn  from    New  York  in  1783  H«  ovHi«d 
A  Province  to  which  He  kid  alu-vy*  be.-n  .tn 
Uru.iiueuf    and  B«  u.ela  cf  or,  ajtd  txuu.*  iu 
E ngland, l-oiu ,  ill  HtsPoj»erfj  b.ki  o.l  Hiiu  , 

w  hit  li  revrfr  of  Fort  rue  He  bore  vrit  h 
ib-tt    ■  ;a  Lnutel»,  Fortitude  .md    Bit>nity 
which  had    diif in^'riske  d     Him     tkroirj>*k 
•  very    former    «ta.ffe  of  Life. 


j  He  was    hot  a.   at    New  York  ike  12  *<fc.T«rf  S«|><*.W 
w  tkeYe.tr  1720;  and  Bied  iu  this  Place   fkeSOti- 
."..»    ,.i  A|>r<kwtkeY««x  1785  A?V.l   65  Year*. 

/•J'-ftimUt 

■HP              ■■■■■ 

Bhhmh 

■ 

273 


MEMORIAL  TABLET   IN   PHILIPSE   MANOR-HOUSE. 


The  Philipse  Manor-House       275 

The  finale  ("  Loaned  by  Ethan  Flagg") 
signifies  that  it  was  placed  here  by  a  descend- 
ant of  the  defrauded  Lord  of  the  Manor. 
Our  cut  gives  the  testimonial  exactly  as  it 
stands  upon  the  wall  of  an  American  temple 
of  Justice.  Across  the  pathos  of  lines  penned 
in  sad  good  faith,  flickers  a  gleam  of  humor 
that  was  never  in  the  mind  of  composer  or 
scribe,  as  the  reader  contrasts  tablet  with  en- 
vironment. 


XII 


THE  JUMEL  MANSION.     ON  WASHINGTON 
HEIGHTS,  NEW  YORK  CITY 

AS  we  have  read  in  the  story  of  the  Philipse 
Manor- House,  the  most  brilliant  wedding 
of  the  year  i  758  was  celebrated  in  the  drawing- 
room  of  that  famous 
homestead  when  Mary 
Philipse  gave  her  hand 
to  Roger  Morris.  The 
bridegroom  was  a  son 
of  Charles  Morris  of 
Wandsworth,  England, 
had  served  under  Brad- 
dock,  and  otherwise  dis- 
tinguished himself  in 
the  British  army.  The 
bride  was  "  a  woman  of 
great  beauty  as  well  as  force  of  will,"  writes 
one  historian  who  cannot  withhold  the  gratui- 

276 


ROGER  MORRIS  COAT-OF-ARMS. 


The  Jumel  Mansion  277 

tous  assumption — -"  If  she  had  married  Wash- 
ington, some  think  she  would  have  made  him 
a  royalist." 

The  gossip  of  her  conquest  of  the  Great 
Rebel  has  had  more  to  do  with  keeping  her 
name  alive  than  her  "great  beauty"  of  person 
and  strength  of  character.  Mary  Cary,  the 
wife  of  Edward  Ambler,  Gentleman,  was  living 
at  Jamestown,  Virginia.  Colonel  Beverley 
Robinson  whose  father  had  resided  for  a  time 
in  Williamsburg,  then  the  capital  of  the  Old 
Dominion,  might  have  been  able  to  tell  his 
beautiful  sister-in-law  something  of  that  early 
romance  that  would  have  abated  the  natural 
vanity  every  woman  feels  in  the  review  of  the 
"  rejected  addresses "  which  are,  after  a  few 
years,  of  no  value  except  to  the  (former)  owner. 

There  is  no  accounting  for  feminine  taste  in 
the  matter  of  husbands.  Mary  Morris  would 
not  have  cared  a  whit  for  the  old  affair  with 
that  other  Mary,  if  she  had  ever  heard  it 
(which  is  unlikely).  Nor  did  she  envy  the 
Widow  Custis,  although  news  came  to  her 
early  in  1759  °f  another  splendid  wedding, 
this  time  in  tide-water  Virginia.  When  she 
and  her  Roger  took  possession  of  the  fine 
house  he  had  built  for  her  on  Harlem  Heights, 


278      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

she  would  not  have  exchanged  places  with  any 
other  matron  or  maid  in  the  New  World,  or  in 
the  Old.  Her  well-beloved  brother  Frederick 
lived,  literally  like  a  lord,  in  the  dear  old 
Manor-House  under  the  balustraded  roof  of 
which  she  had  drawn  her  first  breath  ;  her  sis- 
ter Susan  was  the  happy  wife  of  a  gallant  offi- 
cer and  the  mistress  of  fair  Beverley.  Neither 
of  these  homes  was  more  beautiful  for  situation 
than  the  newer  mansion  constructed  to  please 
her  fancy  and   to   subserve   her   convenience. 

The  growing  city  of  New  York  was  visible 
between  the  clumps  of  the  native  forest-trees 
which  Roger  Morris  had  the  good  sense  to 
leave  standing  upon  the  spreading  lawn. 

New  York,  at  that  date,  as  a  sprightly  writer 
tells  us,  "  was  a  city  without  a  bath-room,  with- 
out a  furnace,  with  bed-rooms  which,  in  winter, 
lay  within  the  Arctic  Zone,  with  no  ice  during 
the  torrid  summers,  without  an  omnibus,  with- 
out a  moustache,  without  a  match,  without  a 
latch-key." 

It  was  no  worse  off  in  these  respects  than 
older  London,  we  may  observe  in  passing. 
Whatever  of  comfort  and  luxury  pertained  to 
the  age  was  as  much  Mrs.  Morris's  as  if  her 
husband's    domain    were    a    dukedom   on   the 


The  Jumel  Mansion  279 

other  side  of  the  water.  The  dearth  of  bath- 
rooms and  latch-keys  was  not  felt  by  those 
who  had  never  heard  of  such  alleviations  of 
ancient  and  honorable  inconveniences.  New 
York  represented  Society  to  the  dwellers  upon 
the  wooded  heights  of  Harlem.  The  circle, 
made  up  of  DePeysters,  DeLanceys,  Bayards, 
Van  Cortlandts,  Livingstons,  and  the  like,  was 
a  fit  setting  for  such  gems  as  the  Philipse  sis- 
ters. In  the  torrid  summers,  the  hill-top 
crowned  by  Beverley,  and  the  forest  lands 
about  Lake  Mahopac  wooed  the  owners  to  re- 
treats that  were  as  truly  home  as  the  city  and 
suburban  mansions. 

For  all  that  has  reached  us  to  the  contrary, 
the  bright,  brave  woman  who  led  the  fashions 
in  New  York  for  three  quarters  of  the  year, 
and  played  Lady  Bountiful  to  her  Putnam 
County  tenants  from  July  to  October,  had  few 
crooks  in  the  lot  to  which  Roger  Morris  had 
called  her,  until  the  war-cloud  burst  above  her 
very  head. 

When  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the 
American  forces  sat  down  to  supper  on  the 
evening  of  September  21,  1776,  at  the  table 
that  had  been  presided  over  for  eighteen  years 
by  the  handsomest  of  his  alleged  loves,   the 


280      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

homestead   was    already   only   the    "deserted 
house  of  Colonel  Roger  Morris,  Tory."     The 
warrior  had  other  things  upon 
his  mind   than  loverly  reminis- 
cences.     The    shadows    which 
made  yet  more  serious  a  visage 
rarely  lighted  by  a  smile  during 
%        those   crucial  'days,   were  called 
up    by    practical    and    present 
roger  MORR.S.       troubles<     While  his  head-quart- 

ers  were  in  the  Morris  House,  the  number  of 
soldiers  under  his  command  was  not  twenty- 
four  thousand,  all  told.  Of  these,  seven  thou- 
sand were  sick  or  disabled,  leaving  less  than 
eighteen  thousand  fit  for  duty. 

Rebel  and  Republican  'though  he  was, 
Washington  was  a  patrician  at  heart.  Not  the 
least  of  the  minor  worries  that  chased  laughter 
from  his  lips  and  sleep  from  his  pillow,  at  this 
juncture  of  his  fortunes,  was  the  indifferent 
quality  of  those  next  to  him  in  command. 
The  privates  were  better-born  and  bred,  as 
a  rule,  than  their  officers.  When  a  Briga- 
dier General  pulled  off  his  coat  at  the  mess- 
table  and  carved  a  baron  of  beef  in  his  shirt- 
sleeves, and  a  Captain  of  horse  in  a  Connecti- 
cut regiment  shaved  a  private  soldier  on  the 


The  Jumel  Mansion  281 

parade-ground  right  under  the  windows  of  the 
drawing-room,  all  the  gentleman  and  the  marti- 
net within  the  Master  of  Mt.  Vernon,  revolted. 
He  was,  throughout  his  eventful  life,  the 
devotee  of  order  and  the  disciple  of  routine, 
fastidious  in  his  personal  habits,  and  jealous 
for  the  dignity  of  rank.  Adjutant-General 
Reed  is  our  authority  for  the  shaving-scene, 
and  the  date  was  October  5,  1776. 

A  general  slipshoddiness  pervaded  the  army, 
from  the  officers  down  to  the  pickets,  who 
scraped  acquaintance  with  the  British  sentinels 
on  the  other  side  of  the  creek  and  bartered 
chews  of  tobacco  with  them  by  weighting  the 
quids  with  pebbles  and  flinging  them  across 
the  water.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  reflect  how 
the  homestead  fared  during  the  occupancy  of 
such  officers,  and  what  ruin  must  have  been 
wrought  in  the  beautiful  grounds. 

Fourteen  years  afterward,  we  find  Washing- 
ton once  more  at  the  Morris  House. 

In  the  Presidential  diary  of  July  10,  1790,  is 
this  entry,  made  in  the  formal,  colorless  style 
of  the  distinguished  penman  : 

"  Having  formed  a  party  consisting  of  the  Vice-Presi- 
dent, his  lady,  and  Miss  Smith,  the  Secretaries  of  State, 
Treasury,  and  War,  and  the  ladies  of  the  two  latter,  with 


282       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

all  the  gentlemen  of  my  family,  Mrs.  Lear  and  the  two 
children,  we  visited  the  old  position  of  Fort  Washington, 
and  afterwards  dined  on  a  dinner  prepared  by  Mr. 
Marriner  at  the  house,  lately  Colonel  Roger  Morris',  but 
confiscated  and  in  occupation  by  a  common  farmer." 

The  plebeian  agriculturist,  having  prepared 
at  his  house  the  dinner  on  which  the  august 
personages  were  to  dine,  would  have  had  them 
eat  it  in  doors,  we  gather  from  other  sources, 
but  the  visitors,  the  like  of  which  had  never 
sat  down  to  his  board,  insisted  upon  turning 
the  affair  into  a  picnic.  The  collation  was 
spread  upon  the  grass  under  the  trees,  and  to 
the  amazement  and  chagrin  of  the  bovine 
host  (?)  the  Chief  Magistrate  and  his  following 
partook  of  it  as  Mr.  Marriner  was  used  to  see 
his  laborers  devour  bread  and  cold  pork  in  the 
"  nooning." 

The  "  we  "  of  the  aforesaid  diary  was  not 
official,  but  conjugal,  and  "  the  two  children  " 
were  My  Lady  Washington's  grandson  and 
granddaughter.  Reminiscences  of  the  messes 
and  councils,  the  dreading  and  the  planning  of 
i  776  must  have  slipped  into  the  lively  luncheon 
talk.  It  is  within  the  bounds  of  probability 
that  a  thought  of  the  dethroned  lady  of  the 
manor  may  have  won  a  stifled  sigh  from  Roger 


283 


HENRY  QAQE  MORRIS,   REAR-ADMIRAL  IN  THE  BRITISH   NAVY. 
CSON  OF  ROGER  AND  MARY  MORRIS.) 


The  Jumel  Mansion 


28c 


Morris's  former  brother-in-arms  and  her  quon- 
dam admirer,  in  the  reflection  of  her  changed 
estate  in  exile  and  comparative  poverty. 

Mary  Morris  died  in   London  at  the  great 
age  of  ninety-five,  in  1825. 

The  house  built 
for  her  by  her  bride- 
groom, and  in  which 
she  spent  eighteen 
happy  years,  was 
sold  by  the  United 
States  government 
to  J  ohn  J  acob  Astor. 
In  1 8 10  it  passed 
into  the  hands  of 
Stephen  Jumel,  a 
New  York  mer- 
chant, although  by 
birth  a  Frenchman. 
When  a  mere  boy 
he  had  emigrated 
to     San     Domingo 

and  there  became  an  opulent  coffee-planter. 
About  the  time"  that  Farmer  Marriner  was 
entertaining  his  great  folks  upon  the  lawn  at 
Fort  Washington,  the  future  master  was  a 
beggared  fugitive,  skulking  in  woods  and  be- 


MARY  CPHILIPSE)  MORRIS 
(AT  THE  AGE  OF  95). 


286      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

hind  sand-hills  to  escape  the  fury  of  the  insur- 
gent blacks.  More  fortunate  than  most  of  his 
fellow-planters,  he  attracted  the  notice  of  a 
passing  vessel  and  was  taken  on  board.  At 
St.  Helena,  the  first  port  touched  by  the  ves- 
sel after  leaving  the  island,  he  went  ashore, 
and  in  one  way  and  another,  made  money 
enough  in  the  course  of  a  year  or  so,  to  take 
him  to  New  York.  Upon  his  arrival  in  that 
city  he  found  that  a  cargo  of  coffee,  shipped 
from  San  Domingo  on  the  eve  of  the  insurrec- 
tion, had  been  received  by  the  consignees,' 
and  that  the  proceeds  awaited  his  pleasure. 
The  unexpected  flotsam  and  jetsam  was  the 
nucleus  of  a  fortune  that  ranked  him  in  due 
time  among  the  merchant  princes  of  New 
York. 

He  married,  April  7,  1804,  Miss  Eliza 
Bowen  of  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  a  beauti- 
ful blonde,  with  a  superb  figure  and  graceful 
carriage.  At  the  date  of  the  marriage  her 
physical  charms  were  in  the  glory  of  early  ma- 
turity. She  was  twenty-seven  years  of  age, 
having  been  born  April  2,  1777.  M.  Jumel 
was  nearing  his  fiftieth  birthday,  but  alert, 
vigorous,  and  courtly,  and  passionately  enam- 
ored of  his  bride. 


The  Jumel  Mansion  287 

The  marriage  was  solemnized  at  St.  Peter's 
Church,  in  Barclay  Street,  and  the  wedding- 
party  drove  from  the  church  door  to  an  elegant 
house  on  Bowling  Green  which  M.  Jumel  had 
purchased  and  fitted  up  with  express  reference 
to  the  taste  and  comfort  of  his  prospective 
wife.  There  were  present  at  the  wedding- 
breakfast  a  few  intimate  friends  of  the  happy 
couple,  including  the  French  Consul  and  the 
priest  who  had  performed  the  ceremony,  the 
bridegroom  being  a  Roman  Catholic.  A  corps 
of  West  Indian  servants  waited  at  table  and  in 
the  house.  M.  Jumel  would  have  no  others 
when  he  could  get  these. 

The  feast  over  and  the  guests  dispersed,  he 
invited  his  bride  to  accompany  him  in  a  drive 
"  into  the  country,"  stating  that  a  friend  had 
lent  him  carriage,  horses,  and  coachman  for 
this  occasion.  The  excursion  took  in  the  pres- 
ent site  of  the  City  Hall,  but  could  hardly  have 
led  them  so  far  as  the  shaded  roads  dividing 
the  farms  above  Twenty-third  Street. 

As  they  alighted  at  their  own  door  on  their 
return,  M.  Jumel  inquired: 

"  How  are  you  pleased  with  the  carriage  and 
horses  ? "  and  upon  receiving  the  answer,  re- 
plied, gallantly  : 


288      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

"  They  are  yours,  my  dear." 

The  chariot  cost   eight  hundred  dollars,   a 
frightful  sum  in  the  ears  of  the  economist  who 
reflects  upon  the  value  of  a  dollar  at  that  time. 
The  gift  was  an  earnest  of  the  lavish  generos- 
ity displayed  toward  his  wife  for  the  almost 
thirty  years  of   their  wedded   life.      She  was 
clever,   energetic,   and  ambitious.      He  recog- 
nized her  intellectual  ability,  and  encouraged 
her  in  the  course  of  reading  and  study  which 
she  began  forthwith  in  order  to  fit  herself  for 
the  position  he  had  given  her.     She  learned  to 
speak  French  like  a  native,  her  musical  skill 
was  above  mediocrity  ;  in  conversation  she  was 
not  surpassed  in  brilliant  effects  and  sterling 
sense  by  any  woman  in  her  circle,  than  which 
there  was  no  better  in  New  York.       In  busi- 
ness affairs  she  was  her  husband's  co-adviser, 
and,  as  the  future  was  to  prove,  his  equal  in 
commercial  sagacity.      In   1812,  M.  Jumel  re- 
tired from  the  active  cares  of  business  life  and 
set  about  the  full  enjoyment  of  the  immense 
fortune  he  had  amassed. 

His  permanent  residence  had  been  for  two 
years  at  Fort  Washington,  as  it  was  still  called. 
His  family  consisted  of  his  wife  and  Madame's 
young  niece,   whom  the  childless  couple  had 


The  Jumel  Mansion  289 

adopted,  and  the  house  was  continually  full  of 
company. 

"  Among  the  celebrities  who  have  visited 
this  mansion  were  Louis  Philippe,  Lafayette, 
Talleyrand,  Joseph  Bonaparte,  Louis  Napo- 
leon, Prince  de  Joinville,"  etcetera. 

The  list,  drawn  from  family  papers,  is  too 
long  to  be  copied  here.  From  the  same  source 
we  learn  that  Louis  Napoleon  was  a  guest  here 
while  a  poverty-stricken  exile,  and  that  M.  Ju- 
mel lent  him  money,  a  benefaction  gratefully 
recollected  when  the  emigre  was  elevated, 
first,  to  the  Presidency,  then  to  the  Imperial 
throne. 

Turning  the  pages,  our  eyes  are  arrested  by 
a  startling  paragraph  : 

"  M.  Jumel  was  an  ardent  Bonapartist,  and 
in  181 5,  on  the  first  day  of  June,  sailed  in  his 
own  ship,  The  Eliza  "  (named  for  his  wife)  "  to 
France  with  his  wife  and  her  niece,  who  was  a 
young  miss,  with  the  idea  of  bringing  the  fallen 
Emperor  to  this  country." 

The  sum  which  the  French  millionaire  was 
ready  to  invest  in  the  desperate  enterprise,  was 
said  to  represent  the  half  of  his  fortune. 

"  On  arriving,  he  proffered  the  Emperor 
safe  conduct  to  America,  and  an  asylum  there. 


290      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

Napoleon  returned  M.  Jumel  his  heartfelt 
thanks,  but  declined  to  attempt  the  escape." 

The  transaction  in  Emperors  might  have 
been  unfortunate  for  the  Bonapartist  financier 
but  for  the  popularity  and  finesse  of  his  clever 
wife.  The  Marquis  de  Cubieres  had  been  be- 
friended by  the  Jumels  when  a  penniless  emigre 
in  America,  and  he  was  high  in  favor  with 
Charles  X.  Madame  speedily  became  a  favor- 
ite at  Court ;  the  most  distinguished  people 
flocked  to  her  salon,  and  she  kept  on  excellent 
terms  with  all  political  parties.  With  rare 
skill  she  avoided  the  chance  of  disagreeable 
encounters  by  inviting  Bourbon  and  Bonaparte 
partisans  upon  different  evenings.  It  was  a 
bold  game,  but  she  proved  herself  adequate  to 
cope  with  hazards  and  to  conquer  difficulty. 

For  five  years  she  revolved  and  sparkled  in 
the  orbit  defined  by  her  genius,  and  in  which 
her  husband's  wealth  enabled  her  to  move. 

She  is  reported  to  have  said,  in  after  days, 
that  she  had  never  really  lived  except  during 
that  enchanting  semi-decade.  In  beauty,  wit, 
and  the  tactful  address  innate  with  the  Parisian 
woman  of  the  world,  and  seldom  acquired  by 
those  who  are  not  born  with  it,  she  developed 
like  a  splendid  tropical  flower  brought  suddenly 


The  Jumel  Mansion  291 

into  the  sunshine.  Henceforward,  and  to  the 
end  of  her  life,  she  was  the  Frenchwoman, 
with  few  traces  of  the  New  York  millionaire's 
wife  in  carriage  and  speech,  and  none  of  the 
Rhode  Island  shell  she  had  cast  away  when 
she  married  M.  Jumel.  There  are  many  tales 
of  her  Court  triumphs  that,  however  exag- 
gerated they  may  be  by  much  telling,  bespeak 
the  fulfilment  of  her  ambitions. 

Not  a  whisper  was  ever  breathed  against  her 
fealty  to  her  husband  who,  on  his  part,  likewise 
found  engrossing  and  congenial  occupation  in 
the  French  capital.  The  Government  was  will- 
ing to  borrow  American  gold  upon  favorable 
terms,  and  the  Bourse  was  abundant  in  op- 
portunities to  swell  his  wealth  by  personal 
speculations.  Sometimes  he  made  money, 
sometimes,  and  at  length  with  alarming  fre- 
quency, he  lost  it. 

A  crash  that  sobered  both  husband  and 
wife  came  in  182 1 — not  total  ruin,  but  reverses 
that  burned  away  the  showy  husks  and  showed 
of  what  sterling  stuff  the  character  of  each  was 
composed.  Consultations  which  appear  to 
have  been  as  amicable  as  they  were  shrewd, 
resulted  in  a  division  of  labors.  Madame  sailed 
for  New  York,  bringing  great  spoil  wijth  her  in 


292       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

the  shape  of  furniture,  jewelry,  bric-a-brac, 
laces,  etc.,  leaving  her  husband  in  France  to 
retrieve  their  shattered  fortunes  in  his  own  time 
and  way. 

Fort  Washington  was  hers  in  her  own  right 
She  forthwith  bestowed  herself  and  her  appurte- 
nances therein,  and  the  New  England  thrifti- 
ness  came  valiantly  to  the  front.  One  of  the 
many  souvenirs,  treasured  by  those  nearest  of 
kin  and  in  heart  to  her,  is  a  pamphlet  bearing 
this  inscription  : 

11  Catalogue 

OF 

Original  Paintings, 

FROM 

Italian,  Dutch,  Flemish  and  French  Masters, 

Of  the  Ancient  and  Modern  Times. 

Selected  by  the  Best  Judges  From  Eminent 

Galleries  in  Europe 

and  intended  for 

Private  Gallery  in  America, 

to  be  sold  at  auction 

on  the  24TH  April — 1821,  at  10  o'clock  A.  M. 

At  Madam  Jumel's  Mansion  house 

Harlem  Heights 

Together  with  the  Splendid  Furniture  of  the 

House, 

By 

Claude  G.  Fontaine,  Auctioneer." 


The  Jumel  Mansion  293 

The  contents  of  drawing-room,  hall,  tea- 
room, dining-room,  blue,  red,  yellow,  and  green 
rooms,  are  named  in  circumstantial  detail,  each 
under  the  proper  head  and  in  dignified,  yet  at- 
tractive terms.  The  auction  was  business,  not 
sentiment,  and  part  of  a  well-concerted  plan. 
The  mistress  of  the  mansion  meant  to  get 
money.  Money,  and  much  of  it,  was  locked 
up  in  such  furniture  as  adorned  few  other 
American  homes. 

Greatly  to  the  satisfaction  of  her  heirs,  and 
the  latter-day  lovers  of  historical  relics,  she 
never  cast  down  before  undiscriminating  bid- 
ders the  choicest  of  her  gleanings  over  seas. 

"  At  the  death  of  Count  Henri  Tasher  de  la 
Pagerie,  in  18 16,  his  widow,  being  in  strait- 
ened circumstances,  sold  the  furniture  and  jew- 
els of  Napoleon  and  Josephine  to  Monsieur  and 
Madame  Jumel  for  the  sum  of  twenty-five 
thousand  dollars  " — is  an  authentic  memoran- 
dum of  the  interesting  transfer  of  priceless 
valuables. 

When  the  dismantled  mansion  was  refur- 
nished for  the  residence  of  Monsieur  and 
Madame,  eight  chairs  that  had  belonged  to  the 
First  Consul  in  1800;  a  table,  the  marble  top 
of  which  Napoleon  had  brought  from  Egypt ;  a 


294      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

clock  used  by  him  in  the  Tuileries  ;  a  chande- 
lier that  was  his  gift  to  Moreau  ;  tapestries  and 
paintings  collected  by  Josephine  and  himself ; 
a  complete  set  of  drawing-room  furniture  that 
had  belonged  to  Charles  X  ;  a  bedstead  of  ex- 
quisite workmanship  on  which  the  first  Consul 
slept  for  months  ;  his  army  chest ;  his  chess- 
board,— on  which  his  fugitive  nephew  was,  in 
time  to  come,  to  play  daily  a  game  with  Ma- 
dame Jumel  with  the  ivory  pieces  designed  by 
the  greater  uncle,  each  wearing  the  Napoleonic 
cocked  hat, — and  scores  of  other  precious  pos- 
sessions before  which  the  privileged  visitor  of 
to-day  lingers  with  gloating  eyes — took  the 
place  of  "  beds,  tables,  and  candle-sticks"  that 
had  meant  money  and  brought  it.  Thus  ap- 
pointed, rooms  and  halls  represented  times 
and  destinies,  the  uprising  and  the  downfall  of 
nations.  As  a  whole,  they  were  the  expression 
of  the  deepened  and  enriched  nature  of  the 
woman  who  dwelt  among,  and  in  them. 

The  work  so  bravely  begun  in  the  public 
auction,  was  carried  on  as  bravely.  She  farmed 
the  large  estate  diligently  and  with  profit ;  her 
investments  in  lands  and  stocks  were  judicious  ; 
her  economies  were  ingenious.  .  Her  husband's 
absence  was  a  valid  excuse  for  absenting  her- 


The  Jumel  Mansion  295 

self  from  the  gay  scenes  she  had  formerly 
adorned,  but  cool  common  sense  and  a  single 
eye  to  business  were  better  reasons  to  the 
practical  side  of  her  for  avoiding  the  expenses 
which  a  contrary  course  would  have  entailed. 
She  was  making  and  saving  money  now,  and 
had  no  leisure  for  costly  frivolities.  The  pol- 
icy of  separation  and  work  that  had  one  and 
the  same  end  was  essentially  French.  Neither 
wavered  in  his  or  her  lot  until,  in  1828,  M.  Ju- 
mel returned  to  America  and  to  his  admirable 
partner,  and  they  began  together  to  enjoy 
what  had  grown,  by  their  united  efforts,  into 
"  an  elegant  competency." 

M.  Jumel  was  a  strikingly  handsome  man, 
and  retained  to  the  last  the  personal  charms 
that  were  signal  in  the  prime  of  his  manhood. 
His  step,  at  seventy,  was  light  and  quick,  he 
carried  his  head  high,  and  his  back  was  as  flat 
as  a  trooper's.  As  a  waltzer,  the  distingut 
septuagenarian  was  openly  preferred  by  his 
fair  partners  to  any  of  the  younger  gallants. 
The  promise  of  many  years  of  life  and  pleas- 
ure was  before  him  when  he  was  thrown  from 
his  carriage,  May  22,  1832,  and  fatally  injured. 

We  have  no  record  of  Madame's  deportment 
when  news  of  the  accident  was  brought  to  her, 


296      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

or  how  she  bore  the  sight  of  the  gallant  old 
Frenchman's  sufferings  for  the  next  week,  and 
the  death  that  ended  them.  His  remains  lie 
buried  in  the  cemetery  of  old  St.  Patrick's 
Church  in  Mott  Street.  Although  his  wife 
was  a  member  of  the  Episcopal  Church  he  re- 
mained, all  his  life,  a  devout  Roman  Catholic. 

She  takes  the  stage  again  in  1833,  the  cholera 
year  in  New  York  and  the  vicinity.  To  avoid 
the  chances  of  infection  she  planned  a  tour  up 
the  river  as  far  as  Saratoga,  already  famed  for 
its  waters.  Needing  legal  advice  in  the  trans- 
fer of  certain  properties,  she  drove  one  day 
into  town  and  down  to  Reade  Street  where 
she  alighted  at  the  office  of  Aaron  Burr. 

The  duel  between  Hamilton  and  Burr  was 
fought  July  1 1,  1804,  the  very  year  of  Madame 
Jumel's  marriage.  On  May  22,  1807,  Aaron 
Burr  was  tried  for  treason  in  Richmond,  Vir- 
ginia, with  John  Marshall,  Chief-Justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  on  the 
bench — "  a  tall,  slender  man  in  his  fifty-second 
year,  with  a  majestic  head,  and  eyes  the  finest 
ever  seen  except  Burr's,  large,  black  and  bril- 
liant beyond  expression.  It  was  often  remarked, 
during  the  trial,  that  two  such  pairs  of  eyes  had 
never  looked  into  one  another  before." 


AARON  BURR. 


The  Jumel  Mansion  299 

Judge  and  prisoner  thus  confronted  one 
another  for  six  months,  and  Burr  was  acquit- 
ted, free  in  name,  but  a  ruined  outcast, — a 
man  without  a  country.  In  June,  1808,  he 
sailed  for  England  under  an  assumed  name. 
In  181 2,  a  paragraph  in  a  New  York  paper  an- 
nounced that  Aaron  Burr  had  returned  to  the 
city  and  had  resumed  the  practice  of  law  in 
Nassau  Street. 

This  summary  of  dates  will  account  for  the 
statement  confidently  maintained  to  be  the 
truth  by  one  who  has  a  better  right  than  any- 
body else  living  to  be  conversant  with  the  facts 
of  the  case — that  Madame  Jumel  had  never 
met,  or  even  seen,  Colonel  Burr,  until  the  day 
of  her  visit  to  Reade  Street.  She  knew  him, 
by  reputation,  as  an  able  lawyer  and  successful 
financier,  and  she  needed  legal  advice  in  the 
settlement  of  M.  Jumel's  estate.  In  talking 
over  the  interview  with  a  confidante  when  time 
had  made  her  an  impartial  critic  of  her  own 
actions,  she  said  that  he  fascinated  her  from 
the  moment  he  opened  the  office  door  to  wel- 
come her,  yet,  that  he  "  inspired  her  with  some- 
thing like  dread."  The  profound  respect  with 
which  he  hearkened  to  her  story,  the  delicate 
flavoring  of  deference   he  contrived  to  infuse 


300      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

into  professional  counsel,  and  which  made  the 
talk  a  conference  of  two  keen  intellects,  not 
the  visit  of  a  client  to  her  adviser,  were  incense 
yet  more  agreeable  to  the  woman  of  affairs. 
When  he  handed  her  into  her  chariot,  and 
stood  with  uncovered  head  upon  the  pavement 
until  she  drove  away,  the  first  step  that  counts 
for  more  than  the  hundred  that  follow,  had 
been  taken. 

She  was  not  an  impressible  novice,  and  her 
projected  journey  was  made  at  the  appointed 
time  without  seeing  Colonel  Burr  again.  In 
company  with  her  adopted  daughter,  she 
travelled  by  easy  stages  as  far  as  Ballston, 
where  she  sentimentalized, /still  leisurely,  over 
reminiscences  of  a  former  visit  to  the  future 
Spa,  when  M.  Jumel  was  with  her,  and  they 
travelled  in  their  chariot-and-four,  with  other 
four  horses  as  relays.  After  a  brief  stay  in 
Ballston  they  went  to  Saratoga.  Before  she 
alighted  from  her  carriage  she  was  pleased  with 
a  hotel  she  chanced  to  espy,  and,  within  ten 
minutes  after  her  arrival,  bought  it  with  the 
furniture  as  a  speculation. 

When  the  city  was  cleansed  of  pestilence  by 
October  frosts,  Madame  returned  in  fine  health 
and  spirits  to  the  mansion  on  the  Heights  to 


The  Jumel  Mansion  301 

find  that  it  had  been  entered  by  burglars  while 
she  was  away.  The  place  was  far  from  civiliza- 
tion, she  now  appreciated,  as  for  the  first  time, 
and  lonely  for  the  niece  whose  lively  spirits 
craved  the  society  of  young  and  gay  people. 
The  drives  in  and  out  of  town  involved  a  need- 
less waste  of  time  and  strength,  when  she  had 
such  a  press  of  business  on  her  hands  as  now 
demanded  her  attention.  She  took  a  house 
in  New  York  for  the  winter. 

Burr  lived,  at  this  time,  in  Jersey  City,  and 
his  law  office  was  at  No.  23  Nassau  Street. 
His  business  communications  with  Madame 
Jumel  were  carried  on  through  a  family  con- 
nection of  the  lady,  in  whom  the  great  lawyer 
became  much  interested.  Madame's  representa- 
tive yielded  gradually  and  almost  against  his 
will — for  he  "  had  heard  all  good  and  all  evil 
of  him  " — to  the  marvellous  magnetism  which 
Burr  exercised  upon  whomsoever  he  willed  to 
win.  Mutual  liking  developed  into  a  friend- 
ship which  subsequent  events  never  under- 
mined. 

"  Come  into  my  office,"  said  Burr  to  the 
ambitious  law  student.  "  I  can  teach  you  more 
law  in  a  year  than  you  can  learn  in  ten  in  the 
ordinary  way." 


302       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

He  kept  his  word,  and  he  kept  his  hold 
upon  his  pupil's  affectionate  veneration.  Burr 
may  have  foreseen  the  day  in  which  he  could 
make  good  use  of  the  influence  he  gained.  It 
is  more  likely  that  he  befriended  a  promising 
young  fellow  because  he  was  fond  of  him. 
Youth,  when  coupled  with  talent,  always  at- 
tracted him,  and  since  the  tragic  death  of  the 
daughter  whom  he  idolized  his  heart  had  a  ten- 
der place  in  it  for  the  young.  His  biography 
abounds  with,  instances  that  prove  this.  He 
was  now  a  successful  lawyer,  but  he  was  a 
marked  and,  at  heart,  a  lonely  man.  The 
genuine  devotion  of  the  student,  his  rapid 
acquisition  of  knowledge  under  his  chiefs  tui- 
tion, his  pleasing  person  and  manners,  made 
sunshine  in  the  darkly  shadowed  life. 

"  The  young  man  went  home  to  Madame 
Jumel  only  to  extol  and  glorify  Colonel  Burr." 

She  was  fond  of  the  eulogist,  who  was,  by 
now,  an  inmate  of  her  house,  and  graciously 
acceded  to  his  suggestion  that  the  friend  to 
whom  he  owed  so  much  should  be  invited  to 
call  upon  and  be  thanked  by  her.  She  did 
nothing  by  halves,  and  now,  as  upon  a  hun- 
dred other  occasions,  the  fulfilment  outran  the 
request  and  the  promise.      Burr  was  no  longer 


The  Jumel  Mansion  303 

prominent  in  fashionable  society.  Born  with 
all  the  elements  of  success,  and  with  the  power 
of  marshalling  these  to  brilliant  advantage,  he 
was  a  conspicuous  failure,  and  he  knew  it. 

To  quote  from  the  reminiscences  of  one  who 
recollected  him  as  he  was  at  seventy-eight  : 

"  He  had  all  the  air  of  a  gentleman  of  the  old  school, 
— was  respectful,  self-possessed  and  bland,  but  never 
familiar.  He  had  seen  a  hundred  men,  morally  as  un- 
scrupulous as  himself,  more  lucky  for  some  reason  or 
other,  than  himself.  He  was  down  ;  he  was  old.  He 
awaited  his  fate  with  Spartan  calmness,  knowing  that  not 
a  tear  would  fall  when  he  should  be  put  under  the  sod." 

This  was  the  guest  (or  so  she  believed)  in 
whose  honor  Madame  Jumel  gave  a  dinner- 
party that  was  spoken  of  as  "  a  grand  banquet." 
He  more  than  justified  the  honor  she  had  done 
him.  The  courtier  and  witty  man  of  fashion 
of  former  days  awoke  within  him,  as  the  war- 
rior starts  up  at  the  reveilti.  He  was  the  star 
of  the  feast,  and  captivated  even  his  enemies. 

When  the  hostess  informed  him,  at  the 
proper  moment,  that  he  was  to  take  her  in  to 
dinner,  he  bowed  with  inimitable  grace  : 

"  Madame  !  I  offer  you  my  hand.  You 
have  long  had  my  heart." 

Florid    flattery   was     depreciated    currency 


304      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

when  so  much  was  in  circulation.  The  speech 
passed  for  nothing  with  those  who  heard  it.  It 
was  Burr's  way,  and  Madame's  smiling  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  tribute  to  her  charms 
meant  even  less,  if  that  were,  possible.  The 
declaration  did  not  commit  him  to  the  duty  of 
the  frequent  calls  in  town,  and  at  her  country- 
house,  that  followed  upon  her  removal  to  her 
old  quarters  in  the  spring. 

It  is  probable  that  the  offer  of  marriage 
which  he  made  in  the  leafy  month  of  June, 
was  entirely  unexpected  by  the  charming 
widow,  for  her  negative  was  as  prompt  and 
firm  as  if  the  nameless  dread  that  had  been 
the  bitter  tincture  in  the  fascination  of  that  first 
interview  had  driven  out  all  thought  of  the 
sweetness.  The  wooer  took  the  rebuff  gal- 
lantly, and  in  a  few  weeks,  renewed  the  pro- 
posal. The  second  "  No  "  was  uttered  more 
gently,  and  he  pressed  the  suit  without  the 
loss  of  a  moment,  or  an  inch  of  vantage- 
ground.  She  did  not  yield  a  half-inch  in  pro- 
testation that  she  could  never  reconsider  her 
decision,  yet  as  he  took  his  leave,  he  said  in 
his  finest  manner  : 

"  I  shall  call  again  " — naming  a  date — "  and 
bring  a  clergyman  with  me." 


The  Jumel  Mansion  305 

Punctual  to  the  day  and  the  hour  of  the 
afternoon  he  had  set,  Colonel  Burr  drove  out 
to  the  Jumel  House  in  his  own  gig,  stepped 
out  jauntily  and  assisted  his  companion  to 
alight.  This  was  David  Bogart,  D.D.,  of  the 
Reformed  Dutch  Church,  who  just  forty-nine 
years  before,  had  married  Aaron  Burr  to 
another  rich  widow,  Theodosia  Provost.1  The 
gentlemen  were  admitted  by  a  footman,  and 
then  began  a  negotiation  so  extraordinary  that 
the  whole  performance  has  been  rejected  as 
mythical,  by  many  who  have  heard  the  story. 
Certain  of  Burr's  biographers  have  passed 
over  his  second  marriage  in  silence  ;  others 
have  broadly  hinted  that  the  ceremony  was 
dispensed  with  altogether  in  the  union  of  the 
heiress  with  the  bridegroom  who  had  counted 
his  seventy-eighth  winter. 

1  Mrs.  Provost  was  ten  years  older  than  Burr,  not  handsome,  but 
singularly  pleasing  in  manner,  accomplished  and  highly  educated. 
He  always  declared  that  "she  was  without  a  peer  among  all  the 
women  he  had  known."     She  died  in  1794. 


XIII 

THE  JUMEL  MANSION 
(WASHINGTON  HEIGHTS,  NEW  YORK  CITY) 

{Concluded)  ~: 

IN  writing  of  what  was  not  the  least  surp;  is- 
ing  of  the  events  that  made  historic  the 
mansion  crowning  Washington  Heights,  I 
shall  consult  data  supplied  by  the  nearest  liv- 
ing relatives  of  Madame  Jumel.  If  direct  and 
authentic  information  were  lacking,  I  should 
refrain  from  anything  more  than  a  passing 
allusion  to  the  sudden  nuptials  and  the  rup- 
ture of  the  ill-advised  bonds. 

It  was  an  episode,  but  an  important  one, 
in  a  life  that  was  all  dramatic,  from  the  hour 
that  saw  beautiful  Eliza  Bowen  the  bride  of 
her  mature  and  opulent  suitor,  to  that  in  which 
the  twice-widowed  woman  of  ninety,  majestic 
and  still  beautiful,  lay  in  her  coffin  in  the  Fort 

306 


The  Jumel  Mansion  *  307 

Washington  "  tea-room,"  and  her  decease  was 
noted  as  the  removal  of  a  social  landmark. 

In  spite  of  Colonel  Burr's  parting  warning, 
Madame  was  totally  unprepared  for  the  appa- 
rition of  an  expectant  bridegroom,  while  the 
message  transmitted  to  her  through  their  com- 
mon favorite,  the  law  student,  to  the  effect  that 
Colonel  Burr  would  wait  downstairs  until  she 
was  ready  to  be  married,  routed  even  her 
matchless  self-possession.  To  complicate  the 
ei  ibarrassments  of  the  position,  her  adopted 
dt  lghter  threw  all  her  influence  upon  the  side 
of  the  resolute  suitor.  The  scene  that  ensued, 
as  described  by  one  who  had  it  from  an  eye- 
witness, would  have  been  absurd  had  it  been 
less  distressing.  Madame  was  now  in  her 
fifty-seventh  year,  but  retained  her  fine  figure 
and  noble  carriage,  with  many  vestiges  of  her 
remarkable  beauty.  Her  complexion  was  that 
of  a  girl,  her  blue  eyes  were  unfaded,  her  feat- 
ures mobile,  and  in  expression  exceedingly 
winning.  Hers  was  a  warm,  deep  heart,  and 
the  dearest  things  on  earth  to  her  were  the 
two  young  creatures  who  knelt,  one  on  each 
side  of  her,  and  pleaded  Burrs  cause,  as  she 
sat,  bewildered  and  protesting,  in  her  chair. 
While  the  young  man  praised  him  who,  un- 


308       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

der  her  influence,  would  regain  his  lost  posi- 
tion in  society  and  rise  to  yet  loftier  eminence 
in  the  profession  in  which  he  excelled,  the 
beloved  niece  entreated  her  to  consider  what 
good  would  come  to  the  whole  household  if 
such  a  head  were  given  to  it.  Fort  Washing- 
ton was  a  dear  and  lovely  home,  but  the  aunt 
could  not  live  there  alone,  especially  after  the 
burglary,  and  they — the  pleaders — could  not 
be  always  with  her.  What  a  comfort  it  would 
be  to  them  to  be  assured  of  her  safety  and 
happiness  in  the  keeping  of  the  gallant  gen- 
tleman who  was  as  brave  as  he  was  fascinat- 
ing !  The  petitioners  had  suffered  more  than 
they  had  allowed  her  to  guess  in  seeing  her 
bowed  almost  to  breaking  by  the  burden  of 
business  anxieties.  The  relief  they  would  ex- 
perience were  these  laid  from  her  dear  shoul- 
ders upon  her  adviser's  ought  to  count  for 
something  in  her  consideration  of  Colonel 
Burr's  suit. 

And  so  on,  and  so  on,  with  coaxings,  argu- 
ments, and  caresses,  until  the  balance  of  the 
cool  head  was  overthrown  by  the  warm  heart. 
The  passionate  exclamation  with  which  she 
finally  drew  her  adopted  child's  head  to  her 
bosom  showed  this,  and   might  have  been  a 


The  Jumel  Mansion  311 

check  upon  the  impetuous  advocates,  had 
their  partisanship  been  less  warm  : 

"  Then — I  will  sacrifice  my  wishes  for  your 
sakes ! " 

Before  she  could  qualify  the  partial  pledge, 
the  niece  summoned  Madame's  maid,  and  her- 
self ran  to  a  wardrobe  for  the  wedding-gown. 
It  was  of  lavender  silk,  softened  by  the  rich  laces 
in  which  Madame  was  a  famous  connoisseur. 

Colonel  Burr  and  Doctor  Bogart  had  been 
in  the  house  for  an  hour  and  a  half  when  the 
stately  figure,  attended  by  the  young  relatives, 
descended  the  staircase.  The  spacious  land- 
ings and  easy  grades  afforded  ample  opportu- 
nity for  a  good  view  of  the  group  from  below. 
Eight  servants,  who  had  caught  the  news  of 
the  impending  event,  were  on  the  lookout, 
peering  in  at  open  doors  and  windows,  and 
saw  the  bridegroom,  with  the  alert  grace  of  a 
man  of  one  third  of  his  years,  come  forward 
to  receive  Madame  at  the  stair-foot.  In  his 
prime  Burr  was  the  handsomest,  as  he  was  the 
most  brilliant,  man  of  his  generation.  His 
black  eyes  never  lost  their  flashing  lights, 
or  his  voice  its  music.  His  smile  was  radi- 
antly sweet ;  his  manner  the  perfection  of 
gracious  courtesy.      He  was  probably  not  the 


312       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

least  "  in  love  "  with  the  woman  he  now  held 
by  the  hand,  but  his  feigned  ardor  was  with- 
out spot  or  blemish  to  the  most  critical  of  the 
group  that  saw  the  twain  made  one  in  the 
name  of  the  Church  and  Heaven. 

The  two  kinspeople  to  whose  fond  persua- 
sions Madame  had  yielded  her  better  judg- 
ment, "stood  up"  with  the  elderly  couple. 
The  ceremony  was  performed  in  the  room  at 
the  left  of  the  entrance-hall,  known  in  the 
Jumels'  time  as  "  the  tea-room."  It  was  the 
favorite  parlor  of  Monsieur  and  of  Madame 
Jumel.  There  were  no  witnesses  of  the 
strange  scene  enacted  there  besides  the  two 
attendants  I  have  mentioned  and  the  gaping, 
awe-stricken  servants  clustered  without. 

Madame's  flutter  of  nerves  subsided  before 
the  benediction  was  pronounced.  As  the  ur- 
bane hostess  she  ordered  the  wedding-feast  to 
be  prepared  and  served,  and  made  clergyman 
and  guests  welcome  to  it.  The  burglars  had 
not  rifled  the  wine-vault.  There  were  bins 
and  bottles  there  thick  with  the  dust  and  cob- 
webs of  fifty  years,  and  the  late  master  of  the 
mansion  had  been  a  noted  authority  upon 
wines.  No  choicer  vintage  was  served  in 
these    United  States  than  that   in  which  the 


The  Jumel  Mansion  313 

health  and  happiness  of  the  wedded  pair  were 
pledged  that  evening. 

A  family  joke,  led  on  and  relishfully  enjoyed 
by  Colonel  Burr,  was  that  the  officiating  do- 
minie, underrating  the  potency  of  the  Jumel 
wines,  became,  as  Burr  put  it,  "very  jolly," 
before  the  party  of  five  left  the  table.  Ad- 
mitting this,  we  assume  that  Madame's  coach- 
man was  detailed  to  occupy  the  driver's  seat 
in  the  Burr  gig  on  the  late  return  to  town. 

The  roads  were  rough,  but  not  .dark,  for  the 
moon  was  at  the  full.  This  we  know  from  the 
fact  that  it  was  eclipsed  during  the  evening. 
The  wedding  company  watched  the  phenome- 
non from  the  portico,  the  newly-made  husband 
and  wife  side  by  side. 

"  Madame  ! "  said  Burr,  taking  her  hand  in 
gallant  tenderness,  as  they  stood  thus,  "  The 
Americans  will  fear  me  more  than  ever,  now 
that  two  such  brains  as  yours  and  mine  are 
united." 

When  the  news  of  the  marriage  flew  over 
the  city  the  next  day,  there  was  astonishment 
in  many  homes,  and  in  one  such  lamentation 
as  Dido  may  have  launched  after  her  perfidi- 
ous lover.  A  woman,  younger  and  more  beau- 
tiful   than    the    heiress     for    whom    she    was 


314-      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

forsaken,  made  no  secret  of  her  love  and  her 
desolation.  And  ^Eneas  was  on  the  inner 
verge  of  his  eightieth  year  ! 

The  wedding-tour  was  to  Connecticut,  of 
which  State  the  bridegroom's  nephew  was  then 
Governor.  The  cares  of  riches  pursued  them. 
A  favorable  opportunity  for  the  sale  of  stocks 
and  other  securities  belonging  to  Mrs.  Burr 
was  embraced  by  her  as  readily  as  if  the  honey- 
moon were  not  in  its  second  quarter.  But 
when  the  money — some  tens  of  thousands  of 
dollars — was  counted  out  to  her  by  the  buyers, 
she  bade  them,  with  engaging  confidence,  give 
it  to  Colonel  Burr. 

"  My  husband  will,  after  this,  manage  my 
affairs." 

According  to  a  rumor  of  the  time,  Burr  car- 
ried the  bills  back  to  New  York,  sewed  up 
securely  in  his  several  pockets — perhaps  by 
the  jewelled  fingers  of  the  over-trustful  spouse. 

The  scene  changes  with  bewildering  rapidity. 
Harlem  was  a  long  way  from  No.  23  Nassau 
Street,  and  Colonel  Burr,  when  once  in  har- 
ness, was,  as  an  acquaintance  described  him, 
"  business  incarnate."  He  absented  himself 
for  days  at  a  time  from  the  suburban  mansion 
now  that  he  had  money  by  the  ten  thousand 


The  Jumel  Mansion  3J5 

to  invest.  A  project  for  colonizing  an  im- 
mense tract  of  land  in  Texas  was  an  irresisti- 
ble lure  to  his  imagination.  A  quarter-century 
ago,  he  had  burned  his  fingers  to  the  bone 
(figuratively)  with  operations  in  the  South- 
west. Nevertheless,  they  itched  now  to  handle 
projects  looking  toward  the  possession  of  the 
goodly  country.  He  bought  up  shares  that 
would  have  doubled  the  sums  expended  had 
the  bubble  of  Texas  emigration  solidified. 
Since  it  burst  after  the  manner  of  its  kind,  he 
lost  every  cent  with  which  his  wife  had  en- 
trusted him  at  Hartford,  and  more  besides. 

All  this  while  the  other  brain  he  had  taken 
into  partnership  was  void  of  any  knowledge 
of  the  reckless  venture.  Mrs.  Burr — whom 
people  with  difficulty  left  off  addressing  as 
"  Madame  " — might  have  been  an  illiterate 
housewife,  just  able  to  count  up  on  her  fingers 
the  profits  of  butter  and  eggs  sales,  for  all  that 
she  was  told  of  the  fate  of  her  funds.  Accus- 
tomed to  compute  interest  and  to  negotiate 
loans,  and  conversant  with  the  real  estate 
market,  she  began  to  wonder  what  had  become 
of  the  packages  of  bills  that  had  padded  out 
her  manager's  lean  figure  in  their  homeward 
journey. 


1 6       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 


Her  adopted  son  was  commissioned  to  sound 
her  husband  on  the  subject. 

The  smiling  eyes  shone  like  diamonds  as 
the  answer  was  given  : 

"  Please  say  to  Mrs.  Burr  that  this  is  not 
her  affair.  She  has  now  a  master  to  manage 
her  business,  and  he  intends  to  do  it." 

That  word,  "  master,"  left  a  scar  that  never 
healed.  The  blow  was  brutal,  and  brutality 
was  a  novel  experience  to  the  pet  of  fortune. 
She  would  not  have  been  a  woman  of  spirit 
had  she  not  resented  it,  and  she  had  spirit  and 
temper  in  abundance. 

An  altercation,  bitter  on  one  side,  cool  and 
keen  as  ice-needles  on  the^  other — followed  ; 
then  a  hollow  truce — another  and  yet  another 
rupture,  until  the  quiet-loving  lord  took  to 
spending  weeks,  instead  of  days,  in  the  Nassau 
Street  office.  The  estrangement  had  lasted 
for  several  months  when  he  had  a  slight  stroke 
of  paralysis  that  confined  him  to  his  bed.  His 
wife,  hearing  of  his  illness,  ordered  her  car- 
riage, sought  him  out  in  his  comfortless  lodg- 
ings and  begged  him,  with  tears  in  her  eyes, 
to  "come  home."  Her  servants  lifted  him 
into  the  chariot,  and  she  took  him  to  the  house 
on  the  Heights. 


The  Jumel  Mansion  317 

He  lay  upon  the  red  velvet  sofa  that  had 
been  Napoleon's  (still  preserved  by  Madame's 
relatives),  in  the  great  drawing-room  in  the  rear 
of  the  mansion,  for  six  weeks,  in  luxurious  con- 
valescence. Mrs.  Burr  was  his  constant  at- 
tendant. As  he  rallied  from  the  seizure  he  was 
his  old  and  best  self  in  witty  chat  and  gentle 
courtesy.  The  month  and  a  half  during  which 
she  nursed  him  back  to  health  was  the  last 
glimpse  of  even  comparative  wedded  happi- 
ness. Burr's  speculations  continued  to  be  ill- 
judged  or  unfortunate.  His  wife  objected 
strenuously  to  risking  any  more  of  her  money. 
Not  long  after  his  return  to  city  quarters,  find- 
ing expostulations  unavailing,  she  awoke  to  the 
imminence  of  the  peril  to  the  estate  accumu- 
lated by  M.  Jumel  and  herself,  at  the  cost  of 
separation,  self-denial,  and  unceasing  diligence, 
and  brought  suit  for  a  legal  separation. 

While  her  complaint,  dictated  by  her  own 
lips,  entreated  that  her  husband  might  have  no 
more  control  over  her  property,  she  played, 
with  true  French  womanly  art,  upon  his  ruling 
weakness  by  naming  "  infidelity  "  as  the  founda- 
tion of  her  discontent.  The  accusation  that 
the  octogenarian  was  capable  of  kindling  the 
passion  of  love  in  one  woman's  heart  and  jeal- 


318       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

ousy  in  that  of  another,  was  a  delicious  tid-bit 
to  the  antique  Lothario's  vanity.  He  made  a 
feint  of  opposition,  but  finally  allowed  the  suit 
to  go  by  default.  He  was  once  more  master 
of  his  time  and  affections.  Madame,  who  did 
not  resume  her  former  name  and  title  until 
several  years  after  Burr's  death,  reigned  again 
the  undisputed  sovereign  of  her  "  mansion." 

The  divorce  suit  dragged  tardily  on.  So 
long  as  each  party  was  unmolested  by  the  other 
neither  took  especial  interest  in  bringing  it  to 
a  close.  Burr  was  actually  upon  his  death-bed 
when  Mrs.  Burr's  agent  hastened  to  Chancellor 
Kent  and  obtained  his  signature  to  the  decree 
in  order  that  the  divorcee  might  have  control  of 
her  property.  His  relatives  could  have  claimed 
a  share  in  the  wife's  estate. 

Aaron  Burr  breathed  his  last,  September  14, 
1836,  aged  eighty  years,  seven  months,  and 
eight  days. 

"  The  last  audible  word  whispered  by  the 
dying  man  was  the  one,  of  all  others  in  the 
language,  the  most  familiar  to  his  lips,"  ob- 
serves Parton. 

He  had  motioned  to  his  attendant  to  remove 
his  eye-glasses,  and  "  fixing  his  eyes  (brilliant 
to  the  last)  upon  the  spectacles  in  her  hand,  he 


The  Jumel  Mansion  3l9 

faintly  whispered  'Madame!'  evidently  mean- 
ing that  they  were  to  be  given  to  Madame,  the 
friend  of  his  last  years." 

It  was  supposed  that  he  referred  to  the  host- 
ess in  whose  house  he  had  passed  the  last  two 
years  of  his  life.  She  had  superintended  his 
removal  to  Port  Richmond  where  he  died,  and 
in  parting  he  had  blessed  her  as  his  "  last,  best 
friend." 

When  word  was  brought  to  the  wife — whom 
he  invariably  addressed  as  "  Madame  " — that 
he  had  passed  away  from  earth,  she  wept  sadly 
and  long.  For  nearly  two  years  they  had  been 
strangers,  never  meeting  in  all  that  time,  but 
she  had  grieved  in  hearing  of  his  sufferings, 
and  was  overcome  by  the  memory  of  the  brief 
brightness  of  their  early  married  life.  She 
always  defended  him  when  his  memory  was  as- 
sailed in  her  hearing,  insisting  that  he  had  a 
kind  heart  and  noble  impulses. 

"  He  was  not  himself  at  the  last,"  she  would 
say.  "  What  wonder  that  he  made  many  mis- 
takes and  had  many  peculiarities  ?  Think  how 
old  he  was  and  how  many  troubles  he  had  had  ! " 

The  chronicle  of  the  succeeding  ten  or  fif- 
teen years  is  pleasant  reading  and  unblotted 
by    calamitous    or    disagreeable    happenings. 


320      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

Madame  Jumel's  name  was  the  synonym  of 
generosity,  often  more  impulsive  than  judicious. 
The  open-doored  hospitality  dispensed  in  her 
beautiful  home  was  as  lavish  and  inconsiderate 
as  the  rest  of  her  giving. 

The  many  anecdotes  that  have  come  to  us 
of  this  calmful  period  of  her  varied  career  are 
interesting,  and  some  diverting. 

For  example,  that  connected  with  a  massive 
sofa-bed  of  solid  mahogany,  still  in  use,  which 
stood  in  the  drawing-room,  and  was  often  occu- 
pied overnight  when  the  bed-chambers  were 
full.  One  night  after  Mrs.  Burr  had  gone  up- 
stairs, a  gentleman  asked  for  a  night's  lodging 
at  the  door.  He  was  out  hunting,  and,  night 
coming  on,  he  had  lost  his  way.  Every  bed  in 
the  house  was  occupied  and  the  petition  was 
referred  to  the  mistress. 

"  Don't  send  him  off,"  was  her  order.  "  Pull 
out  the  sofa,  and  let  him  sleep  there,  and  see  that 
he  does  not  go  to  bed  hungry.  Leave  plenty 
on  the  table  for  his  breakfast.  If  he  is  hunting 
he  will  be  astir  before  anybody  else  is  up." 

The  wayfarer  supped,  slept  well,  arose  be- 
fore the  sun,  and  ate  everything  that  had  been 
left  on  the  table  for  his  morning  meal.  In 
departing,  he  gave  the  maid  who  had  attended 


The  Jumel  Mansion  321 

him,  a  louis  dor  and  left  his  card,  with  thanks, 
for  the  hostess.  It  bore  the  name  of  Prince 
de  Joinville,  third  son  of  Louis  Philippe. 

Joseph  Bonaparte,  then  resident  at  Borden- 
town,  N.  J.,  was  a  frequent  visitor  here  be- 
tween 1819-30.  One  afternoon,  as  he  sat  on 
the  portico  with  Madame,  he  repeated  dreamily 
a  French  poem,  which  so  pleased  the  listeners 
that  they  begged  for  an  encore,  and  the 
adopted  daughter  of  the  home  wrote  it  down 
from  his  lips.     The  opening  lines  were 

"  O  charmante  couleur  d'une  verte  prairie  ! 
Tu  repose  les  yeux  et  tu  calmes  le  coeur  ; 
Ton  effet  est  celui  de  la  tendre  harmonie 
Qui  plait  a.  la  nature  et  fait  la  douceur." 

The  entire  poem  was  written  upon  a  wooden 
panel  and  affixed  to  the  trunk  of  a  tree  that 
had  shaded  the  speaker  while  he  recited  it. 
It  remained  there  as  a  souvenir  of  the  visit 
until  the  house  passed  out  of  the  family. 

As  has  been  said,  Louis  Napoleon  was 
another  guest  whom  the  Jumels  delighted  to 
honor,  even  when  his  fortunes  were  at  the 
lowest  ebb,  and  he  had  accepted  more  than 
one  loan  from  them.' 

In  1852,  at  a  ball  given  by  him,  as  President 
of  the  French  Republic,  in  the  Salle  des  Mare- 


3^2       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

chaux,  Madame  Jumel  was  a  conspicuous 
figure.  She  entered  the  ball-room  upon  the 
arm  of  Jerome  Bonaparte.  Her  gown,  still 
treasured  in  the  family,  was  of  gold-colored 
brocade,  lavishly  trimmed  with  black  Maltese 
lace.  She  chaperoned  on  this  occasion  her 
grandniece,  born  at  the  Mansion,  and  always 
the  object  of  her  fondest  love  and  care.  The 
young  lady,  as  she  was  fond  of  relating  merrily 
in  after  years,  danced  three  times  that  night 
with  the  son  of  Jerome  Bonaparte,  afterward 
Prince  Napoleon  and  nick-named  "  Plon-Plon." 
During  this  foreign  tour — although,  as  her 
yellow  visiting-cards  testify,  the  American  ma- 
tron still  styled  herself,  "  Madame,  Veuve  de 
Aaron  Burr  " — she  began  to  be  better  known 
again  as  "  Madame  Jumel,"  and  retained  the 
name  for  the  rest  of  her  days.  While  in 
Rome,  she  was  persuaded  by  her  relatives  and 
friends  to  sit  for  the  portrait  that  hung  in  the 
main  hall  of  the  Jumel  mansion  as  long  as  her 
heirs  lived  there.  She  was  strangely  unwilling 
to  pose  for  a  likeness,  repugnance  that  in- 
creased with  her  years.  I  say  "  strangely," 
for  she  could  not  have  been  ignorant  that  she 
retained  to  the  last,  beauty  of  a  high  order. 
The  picture  was  painted  by  Alcide  Ercole  in 


The  Jumel  Mansion  323 

1854.  She  was,  therefore,  seventy-seven  years 
old.  The  face  that  looks  from  the  canvas 
might  belong  to  a  well-kept  woman  of  fifty. 
The  expression  is  sweet  and  benignant,  the 
blue  eyes  are  full  and  wistful.  As  she  sits  be- 
tween her  grandniece  and  grandnephew,  she 
looks  the  embodiment  of  tender  motherhood, 
although  she  never  had  a  child  of  her  own. 
Her  satin  gown  is  what  the  French  name, 
" gorge  de pigeon"  in  color,  a  rich,  misty  blue, 
otherwise  indescribable.  Precious  laces,  such 
as  she  delighted  to  collect  and  to  wear,  form 
the  lappets  of  her  cap,  and  droop  over  the 
shapely  hands.  The  poise  of  the  head  is 
queenly,  the  effect  of  the  whole  is  pure  womanly, 
and  exceedingly  winning.  Prince  Torlonia, 
who  was  her  banker  and  friend,  insisted  that 
she  should  be  painted  in  a  chair  brought  from 
his  palace,  and  which  had  once  belonged  to  a 
Pope,  and  took  eager  interest  in  the  sittings. 

We  have  scores  of  tales  of  her  beneficence 
to  the  needy,  her  loving-kindness  to  all  who 
suffered,  of  her  gift  of  one  thousand  dollars  to 
famine-blighted  Ireland  in  1848,  of  larger  and 
smaller  donations,  as  opportunity  was  vouch- 
safed for  the  exercise  of  her  too-generous  dis- 
position.      Letter    after    letter   of    regret   and 


324       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

condolence  was  received  when  the  ready  ear 
was  dull  and  the  open  hand  was  cold  in  her 
last  sleep.  Some  are  in  French,  some  in  Eng- 
lish. All  tell  the  same  story.  One,  from  the 
widow  of  Audubon,  begs  to  be  allowed  to  look 
upon  the  face  of  her  dear,  dead  friend.  She 
died,  as  she  had  wished,  in  the  "  Napoleon 
bed,"  and  in  accordance  with  her  expressed 
directions,  her  remains  rested  in  the  tea-room, 
during  the  last  night  she  spent  in  the  home 
that  had  been  hers  for  fifty-five  years.  She 
died  in  the  eighty-ninth  year  of  her  age. 

A  white-haired  Colonial  Dame,  placid  in  a 
vigorous  old  age,  the  venerable  homestead 
looks  down  from  her  sunny  seat  on  the  hill-top 
over  a  scene  where  naught  remains  unchanged 
of  what  she  beheld  in  Mary  Morris's  and 
Madame  Jumel's  day,  except  the  broad  river 
sweeping  slowly  to  the  sea.  A  mighty  city 
has  rushed  up  to  her  very  feet.  Of  the  vast 
estate  nothing  is  left  but  the  lawn,  sloping 
away  from  the  building  on  four  sides  to  as 
many  streets  and  avenues. 

Those  who  would  visit  it  are  instructed  to 
look  for  it  "  one  block  east  of  St.  Nicholas 
Avenue,  between  160th  and  162nd  Streets." 

The    present    owner,     General    Ferdinand 


>me  Colonial  Homesteads 

dolence  was  received  when  the  ready  ear 
was  dull  and  the  Kind  was  cold  in  her 

last  sleep.  Some  are  in  French,  some  in  Eng- 
lish. All  tell  the  san  One,  from  the 
widow  of  Audubon,  b  slowed  to  look 
upon  the  face  of  her  dear,  dead  friend.  She 
died,  as  she  had  wished,  in  the  "  Napoleon 
bed,"  and  in  accordance  with  her  expressed 
directions,  her  remains  rested  in  the  tea-room, 
during   the  last  night  she  spent  in  the  home 

that  had  P^iyMmf Jl\^M^e^miW^r^  She 
died  in  ^^g^^0h^rA^^jo^ge. 

A  white-haired  Colonial   Dame,  placid   in  a 

orous  old  age,  the  venerable  homestead 
looks  down  from  her  sunny  s<  the  hill-top 

over  a  scene  where  naught  remains  unchanged 
of  what  she  beheld  in  Mary  Morris's  and 
Madame  Jumel's  da)  >t  the  broad  river 

sweeping  slowly  to    I  A   mighty  city 

has  rushed  up  to  hei  Of  the  vast 

estate  nothing    is   lei  the   lawn,    sloping 

away  from  the  build  four  sides  to  as 

many  streets  and  aver 

Those  who  would  it  are  instructed  to 

look   for  it  "  one   bl<  it  of  St.  Nicholas 

Avenue,  between  160th  and  162nd  Streets." 

The    present    owner.     General     Ferdinand 


The  Jumel  Mansion  325 

Pinney  Earle,  has  rechristened  the  mansion 
"  Earle-Cliff,"  and  on  May  22,  1897,  a  lawn- 
party  was  given  "  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Washington  Heights  Chapter,  D.  A.  R.,  of 
New  York,"  for  the  benefit  of  the  "  National 
Fund  to  build  the  Memorial  Continental  Hall 
at  Washington,  D.  C." 

The  hostess  and  her  aides,  in  colonial  cos- 
tumes and  with  powdered  hair  and  faces, 
received  the  throng  of  guests  in  a  marquee 
spread  in  front  of  the  house  ;  refreshments 
were  served  from  booths  on  the  lawn,  and  the 
great,  square  cards  of  admission  bore  other 
attractive  notices.    To  wit  that, 

An  Interesting  Feature  of  the  Celebration 
will  be  a  loan  Exhibition  of  Revolutionary 
Relics. 

And  that 

A  grand  Lawn  Concert  will  be  given 
during  the  afternoon  by  a  Military  Band,  ac- 
companied by  voices  from  the  Children  of 
the  American  Revolution. 

There  was  music  indoors  also.  Trained 
vocalists  were  grouped  about  a  piano  set  in  the 
open  square  of  the  hall  made  by  the  turns  of 
the  staircase,  and  a  bright-faced  girl  swayed 
the  conductor's  baton,  leaning  over  a  balustrade 


6 


26      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 


that  once  knew  the  familiar  touch  of  fair  hands 
which  have  been  dust  for  a  century  and  more. 
Fashionable  folk  strolled  and  chattered  in  the 
dining-room  where  Washington  sat  down  to 
supper,  sad-eyed  and  haggard,  on  the  night  of 
September  21,  1776,  and  in  the  tea-room, 
beloved  by  M.  Jumel,  in  which  Aaron  Burr 
was  married,  and  where  Madame  lay  in  state 
thirty-three  years  afterward.  And  one  of  the 
hundreds  who  came  and  went  under  the  cloud- 
less sky  of  the  perfect  spring  afternoon,  strolled 
apart  to  a  secluded  nook  of  shrubbery  to  read 
and  dream  over  this  advertisement  printed  in 
the  lower  left-hand  corner  of  the  great,  square 
blue  card. 

HHHE  Members  of  Washington  Heights 
1  Chapter,  D.A.R.,  are  thoroughly  im- 
bued with  the  spirit  of  Washington  and 
things  and  incidents  pertaining  to  the  Revo- 
lutionary period,  and  the  proposed  fete 
champetre  is  in  honor  of  a  visit  to  the 
celebrated  house  on  Washington  Heights, 
made  by  President  Washington,  accom- 
panied by  Mrs.  Washington,  Vice-President 
and  Mrs.  John  Adams,  their  son,  John 
Quincy  Adams  ;  Secretary  of  State  and  Mrs. 
Thomas  Jefferson,  Secretary  of  War  and 
Mrs.  Knox,  and  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
General  Alexander  and  Mrs.  Hamilton,  ,  . 


XIV 


THE  SMITH  HOUSE  AT  SHARON,  CONN. 


"M 


R.  HENRY  SMITH  and  his  wife  and 
three    sons,   and    two    daughters,    and 
three    men-servants    and    two    maid-servants 
.  .  .  came  from  Norfolk, 
and  settled  in  New  Hing- 
ham,  1638."     This  is  the 
record  of  the  town  clerk 
of   Hingham,   Massachus- 
etts. 

A  family  register  gives 
the  date  (probably  the 
correct  one)  of  1636  to 
the  immigration  aforesaid, 
and  locates  Rev.  Henry 
Smith  as  the  first  pastor 
of  the  Wethersfield  (Conn.)  church,  in  1638. 
Mr.  Smith  was,  we  learn  furthermore,  a  Puritan 
in  England,  while  his  father  and  brother  were 

327 


SMITH  CREST. 


32$       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

Royalists.  He  resigned  home,  fortune,  and 
family  for  "freedom  to  worship  God,"  and 
"  well-proved  the  terrors  of  the  wilderness,"  on 
this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

His  son  Ichabod  was  the  father  of  Samuel, 
who  became  one  of  the  first  settlers  of  Sufrield, 
Conn.  While  there,  he  married  Jerusha, 
daughter  of  the  celebrated  Cotton  Mather, 
D.D.  Their  son,  Cotton  Mather  Smith,  born 
in  1 73 1,  was  a  graduate  of  Yale  College  in 
i  75 1,  and  in  1755,  being  twenty-four  years  of 
age,  he  was  ordained  to  the  work  of  the  minis- 
try in  Sharon,  Conn.,  being  the  third  pastor 
of  the  (then)  Established  Church  in  that  place. 

His  wife  was  Temperance  Worthington,  the 
granddaughter  of  Sir  William  Worthington, 
one  of  Cromwell's  colonels.  The  provisions 
of  Rev.  Cotton  Mather  Smith's  call  to  his 
first  and  only  charge  are  peculiar  and  inter- 
esting. 

"  Town  Meeting,  Jan.  8,  1755.  Voted, 
That  a  committee  confer  with  Mr.  Smith,  and 
know  which  will  be  most  acceptable  to  him,  to 
have  a  larger  settlement  and  a  small  salary,  or 
a  larger  salary  and  a  smaller  settlement,  and 
make  report  to  this  meeting." 

u  Town    Meeting,    Jan.    15,    1755.      Voted, 


The  Smith  House  329 

That  we  will  give  to  said  Mr.  Smith  420 
ounces  of  silver  or  equivalent  in  old  tenor 
Bills,  for  a  settlement  to  be  paid  in  three 
years  after  settlement.     .     .     ." 

"  Voted,  That  we  will  give  to  said  Mr.  Smith 
220  Spanish  dollars,  or  an  equivalent  in  old 
tenor  Bills,  for  his  yearly  salary." 

Mr.  Smith's  acceptance  of  the  call  contains 
this  clause :  "  As  it  will  come  heavy  upon 
some,  perhaps,  to  pay  salary  and  settlement 
together,  I  have  thought  of  releasing  part  of 
the  payment  of  the  salary  for  a  time  to  be  paid 
to  me  again.     .     .     ." 

"  The  first  year  I  shall  allow  you  out  of  the 
salary  you  have  voted  me,  40  dollars,  the  2d 
30  dollars,  the  3d  year  15,  the  4th  year  20,  to 
be  repaid  to  me  again,  the  5th  year  20  more,  the 
6th  year  20  more,  and  the  25  dollars  that  re- 
main, I  am  willing  that  the  town  shall  keep 
'em  for  their  own  use." 

He  discharged  the  duties  of  this  pastorate 
for  52  years.  He  was  distinguished  for  great 
eminence  in  learning,  piety,"  and  patriotism, 
and  such  gifts  of  heart,  and  mind,  and  person, 
as  endeared  him  indissolubly  to  his  people. 
The  small-pox  breaking  out  in  Sharon  while  he 
was  still  comparatively  a  young  man,  he  and 


33°      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

Mrs.  Smith  separated  themselves  from  family 
and  home,  and  labored  diligently  among  their 
smitten  flock  until  the  pestilence  subsided. 

His  wife  thus  recounts  a  scene  in  the  Sharon 
Meeting-  House  on  the  Sabbath  morning 
chosen  by  Parson  Smith  for  the  improvement 
of  the  text — "  Arise,  O  Lord,  in  Thine  anger  ! 
lift  up  thyself  because  of  mine  enemies,  and 
awake  for  me  to  the  judgment  Thou  hast  com- 
manded. " 

"  Before  the  close  of  the  last  line  of  the 
hymn,  a  messenger  with  jingling  spurs  strode 
down  the  aisle  and  up  the  high  pulpit  stairs, 
where  he  told  the  news  to  my  husband,  who 
proclaimed  in  clear,  ringing  tones  that  the  die 
had  been  cast,  that  blood  had  been  shed,  and 
there  was  no  more  choice  between  War  and 
Slavery." 

Mr.  Smith  himself  volunteered  as  chaplain 
to  the  4th  Connecticut  regiment,  commanded 
by  Colonel  Hinman. 

While  at  Ticonderoga  with  General  Schuyler, 
he  fell  dangerously  ill,  and  "  Madam  "  Smith, 
"being  warned  of  God  in  a  dream,"  undertook 
a  journey  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  by 
forest  and  stream,  to  reach  and  nurse  him. 
The  thrilling  narrative  as  told  by  herself  has 


The  Smith  House  331 

been  arranged  and  edited  by  the  graphic  pen 
of  her  descendant,  Miss  Helen  Evertson  Smith, 
under  the  caption  of  Led  by  a  Vision.  I  will 
not  mar  the  remarkable  recital  by  attempting 
to  condense  it  here. 

At  the  date  of  this  act  of  wifely  heroism 
(September,  1775),  the  parsonage  stood  near 
the  "  big  Ash,"  which — to  quote  Madam  Smith 
— "  had  once  been  the  Council  Tree  of  the 
warlike  Wegnagnock  Indians,  and  now  shaded 
the  door-steps  of  a  minister  of  God,  who  was 
perhaps  as  warlike  as  his  predecessors  here, 
though  always  and  only  for  Righteousness' 
sake." 

The  foundations  of  the  large  stone  house  to 
which  the  family  subsequently  removed,  were 
then  rising  above  the  ground  within  a  stone's 
throw  of  the  u  big  Ash."  They  were  laid,  and 
the  dwelling  completed  by  Dr.  Simeon  Smith, 
a  younger  and  wealthy  brother  of  the  warlike 
pastor. 

Rev.  John  Cotton  Smith,  D.D.,  the  distin- 
guished rector  of  the  Church  of  the  Ascension, 
New  York,  was  a  great-grandson  of  the  Sharon 
divine.  Rev.  Roland  Cotton  Smith,  the  assis- 
tant of  the  late  Phillips  Brooks  of  Boston,  is  a 
great-great-grandson  and  the  possessor  of  the 


332      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

chair  in  which  his  honored  ancestor  sat  to  write 
his  sermons.  His  desk  remains  in  the  old 
homestead. 

In  July,  1770,  Whitefield  preached  in  the 
Sharon  meeting-house,  the  influence  of  Parson 
Smith  having  prevailed  against  the  scruples  of 
those  who  would  have  barred  out  an  itinerant 
from  the  pulpit.  The  catholic  Congregation- 
alist  also  opened  wide  the  doors  of  his  home  to 
his  English  brother,  and  Madam  Smith  nursed 
him  tenderly  through  an  alarming  attack  of 
asthma,  sitting  up  with  him,  as  did  her  hus- 
band, all  of  the  night  preceding  his  celebrated 
discourse  in  their  church. 

He  died  two  months  later,  in  Newburyport, 
Mass. 

John  Cotton  Smith,  the  son  of  Cotton 
Mather  Smith  and  the  "  beautiful  daughter  of 
Rev.  William  Worthington  of  Saybrook,"  was 
a  striking  figure  in  a  day  when  there  were 
giants  in  the  land.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
Connecticut  Council,  twice  speaker  of  the  Con- 
necticut House  of  Representatives  ;  three  times 
elected  to  Congress  ;  Judge  of  the  Connecticut 
Superior  Court;  Lieutenant-Governor  and 
Governor  from  181 2  to  181  7,  and  the  last  Gov- 
ernor under  the  Charter  of  Charles  II. 


The  Smith  House 


333 


"To  these  herediments— qualities  transmitted  by  his 
distinguished  parents— he  added  rare  gifts,"  writes  the  his- 
torian of  his  native  State.  "  A  handsome  person,  features 
classically  beautiful  ;  natural  gracefulness,  ready  wit  and 
culture,    ...    a  model  of  the  Christian  gentleman. 

"Without  mingling  much  in  debate  he  presided  over 
it,  and  ruled  it  at  a  time  when  John  Randolph,  Otis, 
Griswold,  Lee 
and  Pinckney 
were  participat- 
ors in  it,  and 
were  willing  to 
submit  to  the 
justice  of  his 
decisions,  and 
free  to  acknowl- 
edge his  superi- 
ority overall  his 
compeers  in  the 
sagacity  and  ad- 
dress that  en- 
abled him  to 
avoid  the  gath- 
ering storm,  and 
the  lightness  and  elegant  ease  with  which  he  rose  upon 
its  crested  waves." 

He  resigned  his  seat  in  Congress  in  1806, 
on  account  of  his  father's  declining  health. 
The  Rev.  Cotton  Mather  Smith  died  Novem- 
ber 27  of  that  year,  in  the  76th  year  of  his  age, 
and  52d  of  his  ministry. 


JOHN  COTTON    SMITH. 


334      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

In  1 817,  his  son,  Governor  Smith,  retired 
from  political  life.  He  was  now  but  fifty-two, 
in  the  prime  of  his  glorious  manhood, 

"  the  proprietor  of  a  princely  domain  of  nearly  one 
thousand  acres  of  land,  most  of  it  lying  in  the  bosom  of 
his  native  valley,  every  rod  of  which  might  be  converted 
into  a  garden.  .  .  .  From  his  retirement  until  his 
death,  a  period  of  thirty  years,  he  remained  at  home. 
Dividing  his  time  between  scholastic  studies  and  the 
pursuits  of  agriculture,  he  lived  the  life  of  the  Connecti- 
cut planter  of  the  seventeenth  century.  His  hospitable 
mansion  was  always  thronged  with  refined  and  cultured 
guests." 

He  was  also  the  first  President  of  the  Con- 
necticut Bible  Society,  President  of  the 
American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign 
Missions  in  1826,  and  of  the  American  Bible 
Society  in  1831.  His  Alma  Mater,  Yale,  made 
him  an  LL.  D.  in  18 14,  and  the  Royal  Col- 
lege of  Northern  Antiquarians  in  Copenhagen, 
Denmark,  a  member  of  their  illustrious  band 
as  late  as  1836. 

Governor  Smith  died  December  7,  1845, 
aged  80  years.  His  wife,  Margaret  Evertson, 
was  descended  from  two  distinguished  Dutch 
admirals,  Evertson  and  Van  Blum. 

Their    only  child,  William    Mather    Smith, 


The  Smith  House  335 

married  Helen  Livingston,  a  daughter  of 
Gilbert  Robert  Livingston  of  Tivoli.  She  was 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  accomplished 
women  of  her  generation. 

Mr.  Smith  was,  like  his  grandfather  and  his 
father,  a  graduate  of  Yale,  and  like  them, 
eminent  for  piety,  good  works,  and  eloquence. 
While  he  was  never  an  ordained  clergyman, 
and  lived  the  life  of  a  man  of  letters  and  a 
wealthy  country  gentleman,  he  fulfilled  the 
office  of  an  evangelist  in  the  highest  and  best 
sense  of  the  term.  Fearless  in  duty,  active  in 
all  pious  and  benevolent  enterprises,  he  was 
yet  the  peacemaker  of  his  neighborhood,  be- 
loved and  quoted  by  high  and  low.  His  por- 
trait shows  us  a  singularly  noble  and  benign 
countenance  ;  his  memory  is  fragrant  and 
blessed,  as  is  that  of  the  fair-faced  woman  who 
graced  the  old  homestead  from  youth  to  old 
age. 

Their  three  sons  were  John  Cotton,  Robert 
Worthington,  and  Gilbert  Livingston. 

The  first,  although  a  Yale  graduate  and  a 
lawyer  by  profession,  preferred  to  lead  the 
life  of  a  simple  country  gentleman,  travelling 
much  in  foreign  lands,  but  ever  loving  best  his 
own.      He  was  a  man  of  dignified  presence  and 


336      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

many  attractive  qualities,  and  was  a  remarkably 
fine  and  persuasive  orator.  He  was  many 
times  a  member  of  the  State  Legislature,  and 
for  several  years  filled  the  post  of  U.  S.  Minis- 
ter to  Bolivia,  S.  A.  He  died,  unmarried,  at 
the  age  of  nearly  seventy. 

The  third  in  age,  Gilbert  Livingston,  early 
evinced  the  talent  and  piety  that  had  charac- 
terized the  worthy  line.  He  was  prepared  for 
the  ministry  at  Princeton,  and  called  to  the 
pretty  little  church  at  Carmel,  N,  Y.,  but  died 
of  fever  before  his  installation. 

Robert  Worthington  Smith,  the  second  son, 
received  his  academic  education  at  Williams 
College  ;  studied  medicine,  and  took  the  de- 
gree of  M.  D.,  but  never  practised  his  profes- 
sion. The  traditional  beauty,  with  the  moral 
and  mental  gifts  of  the  race,  found  in  him  a 
superb  exemplar.  To  literary  tastes  and 
thorough  cultivation,  he  joined  a  certain  cour- 
tesy of  bearing,  geniality  of  temperament,  and 
warmth  of  heart  that  won  and  retained  the 
affection  of  those  who  knew  him  best.  Be- 
ginning with  heroic  Temperance  Worthing- 
ton, the  sons  of  the  house  were  especially 
fortunate  in  the  selection  of  wives.  Dr.  Smith 
proved    the   rule   absolute   when  he  wedded 


The  Smith  House  339 

Gertrude  L'  Estrange  Bolden,  who,  in  the  mild 
glory  of  a  lovely  old  age,  survived  him  until 
1894  to  bless  home  and  children. 

Three  children  gathered  about  her  in  the 
spring  and  summer  time  that  throw  wide  the 
doors  of  the  spacious  homestead  and  clothe 
with  beauty  the  environing  grounds  ;  Mr.  Gil- 
bert Livingston  Smith,  Miss  Helen  Evertson 
Smith,  well  and  favorably  known  as  a  writer 
of  strong  prose  and  exquisite  verse,  and  Mrs. 
Gertrude  Geer.  The  family  reside  during  the 
winter  in  New  York. 

The  house  was  built  by  a  Genoese  architect 
and  workmen,  brought  across  the  seas  for  that 
purpose.  They  kept  secret  their  method  of 
mixing  the  cement  that  holds  the  stones  to- 
gether. It  is  as  hard  now  as  marble,  and  the 
rigors  and  damps  of  over  one  hundred  New 
England  winters  have  not  disintegrated  a 
morsel.  The  wing  was  begun  some  years  before 
the  Revolution,  and  the  foundations  were  al- 
lowed to  stand  for  several  months  "  to  season." 
So  effectual  was  the  process  that  not  a  line  is 
"  out  of  plumb  "  ;  each  door  and  window  hangs 
evenly  ;  not  a  sill  or  casing  sags. 

It  is  a  stately  home  for  a  stately  race,  and  a 
history  that  has  not  a  blot.     Every  room  has 


34°      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

its  legend.  Upon  the  walls  of  the  sitting-room 
are  the  portraits  of  the  brave  pastor  and  his 
faithful  wife.  His  was  painted  for,  and  at  the 
order  of,  his  parishioners. 

11  Who  insisted  that  he  should  be  painted  in 
the  act  of  preaching,"  said  the  gentle  voice  of 
"  Our  Lady  of  Peace."  V  It  was  a  pity,  for  he 
was  really  a  handsome  man,  and  possessed  great 
dignity  of  manner." 

Echoing  "  the  pity  of  it!"  we  turn  to  the 
placid  visage  framed  by  the  mob-cap,  and  seek 
in  the  gentle,  serious  eyes  of  Temperance 
Smith  traces  of  the  fire  that  enabled  her  to 
overbear  erudite  Dr.  Bellamy's  remonstrances 
when  he  even  intimated  that  she  was  arrogant 
in  believing  "  that  the  Lord  had  condescended 
to  grant  visions  "  to  her. 

"  But  I  soon  silenced  him,"  she  writes. 
"  First,  by  repeating  my  dream,  and,  second, 
by  showing  him  pretty  plainly  that  I  was  not 
beholden  to  him  for  his  opinions  or  permission, 
but  was  going  to  set  out  directly  we  had  break- 
fasted." 

The  clear-cut  face  of  their  son,  Governor 
John  Cotton  Smith,  is  between  the  portraits 
of  the  grand  old  couple. 

Near  by  is  a  mahogany  lounge,  broad   and 


CORNER  OF  LIBRARY  IN  SMITH  HOMESTEAD. 


The  Smith  House  343 

comfortable,  brought  from  France  in  1796,  as 
a  bedstead  for  a  student  in  Columbia  College, 
David  Codwise,  a  collateral  kinsman.  In  a 
spirit  that  proved  the  relationship,  he  con- 
demned the  couch  as  "  altogether  too  luxuri- 
ous," and  slept  during  the  period  of  his  tutelage 
on  a  plank  laid  upon  two  chairs. 

All  the  "plenishing"  of  the  house  is  from 
ninety  to  two  hundred  years  old,  the  more 
modern  having  been  brought  from  her  girl- 
hood's home  by  Mrs.  Smith  over  eighty  years 
ago.  The  drawing-room  carpet  was  sent  from 
Brussels  in  1807,  to  Margaret  Evertson,  wife 
of  Governor  Smith.  It  is  whole  throughout, 
and  the  colors  are  clear  and  harmonious.  So 
extraordinary  is  this  immunity  from  darn  and 
dimness  that  the  story  of  the  actual  age  of  the 
venerable  fabric  seems  incredible  to  those  ac- 
customed to  the  "  often  infirmities  "  of  modern 
floor-coverings. 

The  bookcase  in  this  room  was  "  brought 
over"  by  a  Holland  Evertson,  in  1640.  The 
valuable  Venetian  mirror  belongs  to  a  still  ear- 
lier date. 

A  superb  silver  tray,  bearing  the  changed 
crest  of  Robert  Livingston,  with  the  motto 
"  Spero  nieliora"  adopted   in  commemoration 


344       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

of  his  escape  from  shipwreck,  is  one  of  the 
Smith  heirlooms,  an  inheritance  through  beau- 
tiful Helen  Livingston. 

The  kitchen  chimney  had,  within  thirty 
years,  a  throat  ten  feet  wide  by  five  high. 
Standing  within  it,  Mrs.  Smith's  children  used 
to  peep  up  at  the  stars  at  night.  The  whole 
chimney  is  twelve  feet  square. 

In  Miss  H.  E.  Smith's  charming  tale,  For 
Her  Kings  Sake,  we  read  how  a  Royalist  girl, 
the  ward  of  Madam  Smith,  hid  two  Hessian 
prisoners  in  the  "  smoke-room,"  made  by  a 
cavity  of  this  chimney  in  the  second  story. 

The  rear  wall,  where  the  kitchen  wing  joins 
the  newer  building,  is  fifty  inches  thick.  The 
kitchen  is  a  spacious,  delightful  chamber, 
thirty-two  feet  long  by  twenty-eight  wide. 

Passing  the  door  of  a  quaintly  beautiful  bed- 
room, where  a  sampler  map  of  the  State  of 
New  York,  wrought  in  faded  silks,  hangs  over 
the  mantel,  and  a  mourning-piece  of  "  a  lady 
and  urn  "  upon  another  wall ;  where  the  four- 
poster  with  carved  uprights  and  head-board  is 
hung  with  white  dimity,  as  are  the  deep  win- 
dows looking  down  through  magnificent  elms 
upon  the  extensive  lawn  and  gardens, — we 
climb  the  stairs  to  the  great  garret.     A  large 


The  Smith  House  345 

round  window,  like  an  eye,  is  set  in  the  gable  ; 
the  roof  slopes  above  a  vast  space,  where  the 
townspeople  used  to  congregate  for  dance,  and 
speech-making,  and  church  "  entertainments," 
before  a  public  hall  was  built.  Treasures  of 
antique  furniture  are  here  that  leave  to  the 
wise  in  such  matters  no  hope  of  keeping,  for 
the  fraction  of  a  minute  longer,  that  clause  of 
the  tenth  commandment  covering  "  anything 
that  is  thy  neighbor's  "  ;  and  in  the  middle  of 
the  dusky  spaciousness,  a  long,  long  table, 
over  which  is  cast  a  white  cloth. 

14  Family  papers  !  all  of  them.  Some  day  I 
shall  begin — in  some  years  I  may  complete — 
the  examination  of  them,"  says  Miss  Smith, 
lifting  a  corner  of  what  is  to  me,  now  that  I 
know  what  is  beneath,  the  sheet  covering  the 
face  of  the  dead. 

Hampers,  corded  boxes,  and  trunks  full  of 
them  !  The  hopes,  the  dreads,  the  loves,  the 
lives  of  nine  generations  of  one  blood  and 
name. 


XV 

THE  PIERCE  HOUSE,  IN  DORCHESTER, 
MASSACHUSETTS 


IN  1630,  the  good  ship  Mary  and  John,  char- 
tered by  the  English  company  that  had 
in  charge  the  Massa- 
chusetts Bay  Colony, 
brought  to  Boston  a 
young  man  by  the  name 
of  Robert  Pierce. 

Professor  J.  M.  Peirce 
of  Harvard,  says:  "A 
high  degree  of  uniform- 
ity exists  in  the  spelling, 
as  used  by  persons  bear- 
ing the  name  in  any  one 
family  connection." 
The  branch  which 
sprang  from  Robert  Pierce  has  consistently, 
for  nine  generations,  given  the  preference  to 

346 


PIERCE  CREST. 


The  Pierce  House  347 

the  method  of  spelling  the  name  which  will  be 
used  in  this  paper,  but  as  the  very  able  "  Peirce 
Genealogy"  compiled  by  Frederick  Clifton 
Peirce,  of  Rockford,  Illinois,  proves,  the  parent 
stock  was  the  same.1 

"The  first  patent  granted  by  the  Council 
of -Plymouth  of  land  in  New  England  was  to 
John  Pierce,  of  London,  and  his  associates, 
dated  June  1,  162 1.  This  was  a  roaming 
patent,  granting  100  acres  for  each  settler 
already  transplanted  and  such  as  should  be 
transported." 

Under  this  "roaming  patent"  Robert  "  set- 
tled on  what  was  called  Pine  Neck  " — so  runs 
the  MS.  genealogical  record  kept  in  the  home- 
stead—" near  the  water."  The  cellar  of  his 
house  was  to  be  seen  there  until  1804.  In 
1640  he  built  (in  Dorchester,  Mass.)  another 
dwelling.  "At  that  time  Robert  Pierce's 
house  and  the   Minot  house,  on  the  adjoining 

1  Colonel  Peirce  is  also  the  compiler  of  a  curious  and  valuable  vol- 
ume, giving  the  history  of  another  wing  of  the  family,  under  the 
interesting  caption  of  "  Pearce  Genealogy,  being  the  Record  of  the  Pos- 
terity of  Richard  Pearce,  an  early  inhabitant  of  Portsmouth,  in  Rhode 
Island,  who  came  from  England,  and  whose  Genealogy  is  traced  back 
to  972  ;  with  an  Introduction  of  the  Male  Descendants  of  Josceline 
De  Louvaine,  the  Second  House  of  Percy,  Earls  of  Northumberland, 
Barons  Percy  and  Territorial  Lords  of  Alnwick,  Warkworth  and 
Prudhoe  Castles  in  the  County  of  Northumberland,  England." 


34-8       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

farm,  were  the  only  houses  in  this  part  of  the 
country.  The  road  from  Boston  to  Plymouth 
was  up  Oak  Avenue  "  (directly  past  Robert's 
door)  "  and  near  the  old  well,  crossing  Nepon- 
set  River  at  a  fording-place  near  the  Granite 
Bridge. 

"  Robert  married  Ann  Greenway,  daughter 
of  one  of  the  first  settlers  of  Dorchester,  gen- 
erally known  as  '  Goodman  Greenway.' " 

John  Greenway,  or,  according  to  the  bound- 
less license  in  the  matter  of  orthography  prev- 
alent at  that  date,  Greanway,  or  Greenaway, 
was  a  fellow-passenger  of  Robert  Pierce,  and, 
it  is  supposed,  was  accompanied  by  his  whole 
family.  Robert  Pierce  married  his  daughter 
just  before,  or  just  after  the  voyage  to  America. 

"Ann  was  born  in  England  in  1 591 ,  and 
lived  to  the  uncommon  age  of  104  years.  She 
died  December  31,  1695." 

Robert's  death  is  thus  set  down  : 

"  Robert  Pierce  of  ye  greate  lotts,  died 
January  1 1,  1664. 

"  The  descendants  of  Robert  of  Dorchester 
have  been  men  of  substance,  being  industrious 
and  frugal,  and  have  held  a  respectable  rank 
in  society,  having  intermarried  with  many  of 
the  best  families  in  Dorchester  and  vicinity." 


The  Pierce  House  35 l 

Thus  a  part  of  the  quaint  introduction  to 
the  family  history  made  out  by  a  descendant 
of  the  young  Englishman  who  was  freeman  of 
the  town  of  Dorchester  in  May,  1642.  Pains- 
taking research  on  both  sides  of  the  sea  on 
the  part  of  members  of  the  family,  and  com- 
parison of  old  records  and  heraldic  devices 
have  brought  to  light  some  curious  and  interest- 
ing facts  antedating  Robert  Pierce's  voyage  to 
the  New  World.  These  show  the  name  to  have 
been  originally  Percy,  or  Percie,  and  Robert  of 
Dorchester  to  have  been  collaterally  related 
to  the  Percys  of  Northumberland.  Master 
George  Percie,  who  won  distinction  for  him- 
self and  stability  for  John  Smith's  Virginian 
Colony,  was  a  blood-relation.  His  name  ap- 
pears again  and  again  in  the  genealogical 
table,  even  down  to  the  tenth  generation  of 
Robert's  descendants.  The  tradition  connect- 
ing the  ancestry  of  the  Dorchester  freeholder 
with  that  of  Harry  Hotspur  also  avers  that 
the  line  can  be  traced  back  to  Godfrey  of 
Bouillon. 

It  is  certain  that  among  the  effects  brought 
from  the  old  country  in  the  Mary  and  John 
was  the  coat-of-arms,  the  crest  of  which  is  given 
on  another  page.     A  faded  copy  of  great  age 

*3 


352       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

still  hangs  in  the  old  homestead  in  Oak  Ave- 
nue, Dorchester. 

The  American  offshoots  of  the  ancient  stock 
were  people  of  marked  individuality  from  the 
date  of  their  landing.  To  the  frugality  and 
industry  claimed  for  them  by  the  writer  of  the 
MS.  referred  to,  they  added  stern  integrity, 
strong  wills,  bravery,  and,  like  sparks  struck 
from  iron,  fire  of  disposition  and  speech  that 
kept  alive  in  the  memory  of  contemporaries 
the  tale  of  the  Hotspur  blood.  They  had 
many  children  as  a  rule,  brought  them  up 
with  equal  vigor  and  rigor,  and  lived  long  in 
the  land  they  believed  the  Lord  their  God  had 
given  them. 

Here  and  there  in  the  dry  and  dusty  details 
of  births,  marriages,  and  deaths  we  run  across 
an  incident  not  without  meaning  to  us. 

"  Samuel,  born  1676,  died  December  16, 
1698,  setat  22,  by  the  fall  of  a  tree  on  Thomp- 
son's Island." 

"  John  Pierce  "  (in  the  third  generation  from 
Robert)  "  married  Abigail  Thompson,  of  Brain- 
tree,  January  6,  1693.  She  was  born  Novem- 
ber 10,  1667,  the  daughter  of  Deacon  Samuel, 
and  granddaughter  of  Rev.  William  Thomp- 
son, of  Braintree.      He  joined  the  Dorchester 


The  Pierce  House  353 

Church  "  (on  Meeting-House  Hill)  "  March 
7,  1692,  and  died  in  consequence  of  a  fall, 
January  27,  1744,  aetat  76. 

"  He  was  a  famous  sportsman,  and  spent 
much  of  his  time  in  killing  wild  fowl.  It  is 
said  he  kept  an  account  of  30,000  brants  he 
had  killed." 

A  story  of  this  pious  Nimrod,  handed  down 
through  all  the  generations,  forcibly  illustrates 
the  Sabbatarian  customs  of  his  times  and 
locality  and  the  stubborn  literalism  which  dis- 
tinguished the  Pierces  above  their  neighbors 
in  whatever  pertained  to  moral  and  religious 
observances.  Few  men  shaved  oftener  than 
once  a  week  in  that  primitive  region.  The 
Sabbath  began  with  the  going  down  of  the 
sun  on  Saturday.  It  was  John  Pierce's  habit 
to  shave  in  front  of  a  mirror  set  near  a  west- 
ern window,  and  to  begin  the  operation  half 
an  hour  before  sunset.  On  one  particular 
Saturday  afternoon  the  methodical  Puritan 
set  about  the  hebdomadal  task  later  than 
usual.  Perhaps  the  "  brants  "  had  lured  him 
far  afield,  or  afen,  or  the  work  of  paying  off 
the  laborers  in  "  ye  greate  lotts  "  had  hindered 
him.  As  the  upper  rim  of  the  sun  sank  below 
the  horizon  line  he  had  shaved  just  half  of  his 


354       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

face.  Without  a  word  he  wiped  his  razor, 
returned  it  to  the  case,  and  laid  it  aside  with 
brush  and  strap.  The  next  day  Abigail  Pierce 
and  her  children  sat  meekly  in  the  family  pew 
in  the  old  meeting-house  with  the  imperturba- 
ble master  of  the  flock,  one  side  of  whose  face 
bristled  with  a  week's  stubble,  while  the  other 
was  cleanly  shorn,  as  befitted  the  day  and 
place. 

He  left  seven  children  when  he  was  gathered 
to  his  fathers  in  i  744  ;  and  eight  had  died  in 
infancy.  Two  of  the  seven  married  twice. 
His  grandson,  Samuel,  born  March  25,  1739, 
was  over  thirty  years  of  age,  and  married,  at 
the  outbreak  of  the  Revolutionary  War.  On 
one  and  the  same  day  he  received  a  commission 
as  Captain  from  the  Crown,  and  of  a  Colonelcy 
from  the  Continental  Congress.  He  accepted 
the  latter,  and  served  with  distinction  through- 
out the  war.  His  wife  remained  at  home, 
overseeing  the  farm  and  four  little  children 
during  his  absence.  His  letters  to  her  from 
Morristown,  N.  J.,  and  other  places  of  encamp- 
ment are  penned  in  a  neat,  compact  hand  that 
gives  no  token  of  the  salient  characteristics  of 
the  writer.  The  same  chirography  appears  in 
the  family  record  of  an  old  Bible  in  the  posses- 


The  Pierce  House  355 

sion  of  a  descendant.  From  this  we  learn  that 
his  father  Samuel,  with  dogged  "  perseverance  " 
which  may,  or  may  not  have  been  "  of  the 
saints,"  named  three  sons  after  himself. 

"Samuel  Pierce,  their  first,  born  January 
30,  1734,  died  April  5,  1736. 

"Second  Samuel  Pierce,  born  September  5, 
1737,  died  February  25,  1738. 

"  Third  Samuel  Pierce  "  (the  scribe  himself), 
"born  March  25,  1739." 

The  hand  of  his  grandson-namesake,  Samuel 
Pierce  Hawes,  of  Richmond,  Virginia,  added 
to  this  last  entry,  "  Died  June  4,  181 5." 

At  the  end  of  the  Old  Testament  we  find  in 
the  minute,  distinct  lettering  which  would  seem 
to  have  been  habitual  with  him  : — "  Samuel 
Pierce  began  the  Bible  March  the  6th,  1775. 

"Samuel  Pierce.  I  Red  out  the  Bible  from 
the  First  of  Feb.,  1  772,  to  the  fourth  of  March, 
1 775,  which  was  three  years  and  one  month  and 
four  days." 

To  "read  out"  was  to  read  aloud,  and,  in 
this  instance,  was  done  at  morning  and  evening 
worship.  We  may  be  sure,  too,  from  what  we 
know  of  him  and  the  custom  of  the  day,  that 
he  omitted  not  one  "  begat,"  or  "  slept  with  his 
fathers"  of   First  or  Second  Chronicles,  and 


356       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

did  not  slur  over  a  pomegranate,  bell  or  knop 
of  Exodus.  He  kept  a  sharp  eye  upon  the 
sacred  penmen,  meanwhile,  as  is  evinced  by  a 
marginal  entry  against  2  Kings,  xix. 

"  The  37  Chaptr  of  Isaiah  is  much  like  this. 
S.  P.,  1772." 

And  having  "  Red  out "  the  inspired  volume 
on  March  4th,  he  dutifully  began  it  again  on 
March  5th. 

Of  all  the  patriarchs  of  the  ten  generations 
whose  biographies  are  outlined  in  the  yellow- 
ing pages  before  me,  this  Samuel  Pierce  stands 
out  most  prominently. 

He  addressed  his  gentle  wife  in  the  epistles 
preserved  as  mementoes  of  his  campaigns,  as 
"  Honored  Madam,"  yet  I  have  talked  with 
those  who  recollected  the  imperious  sway  with 
which  he  ordered  his  growing  household. 

After  the  manner  of  his  forefathers,  he 
farmed  his  patrimonial  acres,  now  grown  valua- 
ble by  reason  of  proximity  to  Boston.  His 
habits  were  simple  and  methodical,  his  rules  of 
life  and  conduct  few  and  inflexible  ;  in  domes- 
tic discipline  he  was  the  strictest  of  drill-ser- 
geants. At  twelve  o'clock  every  day  he  came 
home  to  dinner,  and,  in  passing  the  corner  of 
the  kitchen  he  would  cough  loudly  and  mean- 


The  Pierce  House  357 

ingly.  From  that  moment  until  his  august 
shadow  fell  on  the  same  spot  in  the  path  to 
the  fields  after  the  noonday  repast,  not  one  of 
the  half-dozen  children  who  sat  down  tri-daily 
to  the  table  with  their  parents  dared  to  utter  a 
word. 

Yet  he  loved  his  offspring  in  his  way  and 
was  fond  of  them  ;  neither  niggardly  nor  churl- 
ish in  his  provision  for  them.  Two  of  his 
daughters  outlived  infancy,  and  grew  into  tall, 
handsome  women.  Elizabeth  was  twenty-two, 
Ann  but  sixteen,  when  they  went  together  to 
a  commencement  at  Harvard,  and,  as  the 
younger  sister  confessed  to  a  granddaughter 
sixty  years  later,  "  received  as  much  attention 
as  any  other  young  women  present.  We  were 
Squire  Pierce's  daughters,  you  see,"  she  modi- 
fied the  statement  by  saying.  "  Our  father 
was  much  thought  of  in  the  neighborhood." 

Then,  opening  a  drawer,  she  showed  the 
visitor  the  " petticoat"  of.  the  gown  she  wore 
that  day.  The  sisters  were  dressed  alike  in 
slips  of  blue  silk,  trimmed  with  pearl-colored 
satin,  and  hats  to  match. 

Ann  made  a  runaway  match  at  seventeen, 
and  we  find 'her  a  few  years  later  a  widow  with 
an  only  child,  keeping  house  for  her  father. 


358       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

The  stern  fibre  of  her  nature  was  an  inherit- 
ance from  the  grim  despot  whose  coming  had 
quelled  her  childish  mirth.  She  brought  up 
her  fatherless  boy  after  the  strait,  strict 
methods  which  had  not  crushed  her  haughty 
spirit.  They  were  a  high-handed,  high-tem- 
pered race  who  were  born,  lived,  and  died  in 
the  old  house  which  rambled  beyond  the  orig- 
inal foundations  as  means  and  families  in- 
creased. The  right  end  of  the  building,  as  it 
now  stands,  was  erected  by  Colonel  Samuel  at 
the  time  of  his  marriage  with  Elizabeth  How. 
Up  to  that  date  there  stood  in  the  dining- 
room  an  oaken  table,  so  huge  that  the  bride- 
groom-expectant resolved  to  get  it  out  of  his 
way.  It  could  not  be  carried  up  the  narrow 
stairs,  so  when  the  gable  was  opened  to  pre- 
pare for  the  projected  addition,  he  had  the 
cumbrous  article  swung  up  into  the  attic  and 
built  it  in.  '  It  stood  in  the  end  garret  for  over 
a  hundred  years,  and  was  finally  removed  by 
sawing  it  apart  and  taking  it  away  piece-meal. 
In  the  same  garret  was  a  trap-door  leading 
into  a  secret  chamber,  built  for  protection 
against  the  Indians,  a  hiding-place  of  such  in- 
genious contrivance  that,  now  that'  the  flooring 
has  been   laid   solidly  above  it,  one  examines 


The  Pierce  House  361 

the  lower  story  in  vain  for  trace  of  the  room, 
which  is  at  least  six  feet  square. 

The  frame  of  the  house  is  of  Massachusetts 
black  oak,  grown  in  "  ye  greate  lotts."  The 
beams,  twelve  by  fourteen  inches  thick,  are 
pinned  together  like  the  ribs  of  a  ship,  and 
cross  heavily  the  low-browed  wainscoted 
rooms.  In  the  spacious  parlor  built  by  Colo- 
nel Samuel,  there  are  nine  doors. 

Forty  years  ago,  the  big  fireplace  in  the 
family  sitting-room  was  altered  to  suit  modern 
needs,  and  the  beam  running  across  the  throat 
of  the  chimney  taken  out.  It  was  as  black  as 
ebony  and  as  hard  as  lignum  vitae.  Cups,  and 
other  small  articles  were  turned  out  of  the 
wood  as  souvenirs,  and  distributed  in  the  fam- 
ily. The  removal  of  the  ancient  timber  re- 
vealed a  cavity  in  the  masonry  above,  left  by 
taking  out  one  brick.  Within  it,  set  carefully 
side  by  side,  was  a  pair  of  dainty  satin  slippers, 
the  knots  of  ribbon  on  the  insteps  as  perfect 
as  when  they  were  hidden  away  there — per- 
haps two  hundred  years  before. 

Did  Ann  Greenway  bring  them  from  Eng- 
land, and  devise  the  queer  receptacle  to  secure 
the  cherished  bit  of  finery  from  Indian  "  sneak 
thieves  "  ?    Or  did  Mary  inherit  them  and  con- 


362       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

ceal  them  from  envious  neighbors  ?  Did  one 
of  the  Abigails,  or  Sarahs,  or  Hannahs,  or 
Marys,  or  Elizabeths,  whose  names  are  re- 
peated in  successive  generations,  tuck  the 
pretty  foreign  things  into  a  hole  in  the  wall 
for  safe  keeping  on  the  eve  of  a  journey  or 
visit,  and  return  to  find  that,  while  she  was 
away,  they  had  been  unwittingly  walled  in  and 
up,  as  irretrievably  as  Marmion's  "  injured 
Constance  "  in  the  monastery  vault  ? 

A  funny,  and  a  characteristic,  little  story  has 
to  do  with  the  crack  visible  in  the  lower  panel 
of  the  closet  door  at  the  left  of  the  fireplace, 
in  the  middle  parlor  of  the  Pierce  homestead. 
This  was  known  two  hundred  years  agone  as 
"the  gun-closet."  In  it,  powder-horns  and 
shot-pouches  were  slung  upon  hooks,  and  guns 
stood  ready  loaded  for  an  Indian  surprise- 
party,  or  the  appearance  of  deer  and  wild  fowl. 
Abigail  Pierce,  spouse  of  the  mighty  hunter 
John,  one  day  locked  the  door  and  carried  the 
key  off  in  her  pocket  when  she  went  on  a  visit 
to  a  neighbor,  lest  the  children  might  get  at 
the  fire-arms  in  her  absence.  During  the 
afternoon  a  great  flock  of  wild  geese  flew  low 
and  straight  toward  the  house,  and  the  good 
man    rushed    in-doors    for    his   fowling-piece, 


The  Pierce  House  365 

Finding-  the  closet  locked,  he  promptly  kicked 
out  a  panel,  seized  the  gun  and  had  his  shot. 
The  broken  panel  was  dulv  replaced,  but  the 
scar  left  by  the  master's  heroic  treatment  re- 
mains unto  this  day. 

"  Action  first,  speech  afterwards,"  was  the 
watchword  of  those  earlier  generations. 

Robert  of  Dorchester  preserved,  as  long  as 
he  lived,  a  ship-biscuit  brought  from  England 
by  him  in  1630.  It  is  still  treasured  in  the  old 
house  and  is  undoubtedly  the  "  ripest  "  bread 
in  America.  Beside  it,  in  the  glass  case  made 
to  keep  it  in,  lies  a  corn-cob,  used,  for  a  gener- 
ation, in  shelling  corn  by  the  first  Samuel  Pierce, 
who  married  Abigail  Moseley  in  1  702.  Other 
relics  are  sacredly  kept  under  the  roof-tree 
which,  for  more  than  two  and  a  half  centuries, 
has  sheltered  owners  of  the  same  blood  and 
name.  Among  them  are  a  stand  and  chest  of 
drawers  brought  over  in  the  Mary  and  John  ;  a 
Malacca  cane,  silver-banded,  with  an  ivory  head ; 
a  tall  clock,  a  desk,  and  a  mirror  with  bevelled 
edges  which  may  have  formed  part  of  the  plen- 
ishing of  Ann  Greenway.  We  cannot  help 
building  a  little  romance  in  connection  with  the 
long  voyage  taken  by  Goodman  Greenway  and 
his  family,  in  company  with  young  Robert. 


366       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

"  For  diverse  good  causes  and  considerations 
me  thereunto  moving,  and  specially  for  the 
great  love  and  fatherly  affection  that  I  bear 
unto  my  sonne-in-law  Robert  Pearse  and  Ann 
Pearse,  my  daughter — "  is  the  preamble  of  the 
will  which  bequeaths  to  them  a  goodly  estate. 

The  will-literature  of  the  race  is  unusually 
full  and  rich  in  suggestions  of  local  history  and 
character.  I  have  before  me  the  entire  last 
wills  and  testaments  of  five  of  the  Pierce  name 
and  lineage,  all  devising  property  in  the  direct 
line.  The  longest  and  most  verbose  of  these 
are  those  of  John  (1743)  and  Colonel  Samuel 
(1807).  There  are  touches  of  piety  and  hu- 
man tenderness  in  Robert's  (date  of  1664) 
which  move  us  to  interest  and  sympathy  with 
the  old  exile.  Between  the  stipulation  that  a 
bequest  of  "  thirty  pounds  shall  bee  payd 
within  three  years  after  my  wife's  decease  in 
good  current  pay  of  New  England,"  and  the 
appointment  of  his  executors,  occurs  this  pas- 
sage . — «  And  now,  my  Dear  Child,  a  ffather's 
Blessing  I  Bequeath  unto  you  both  &  yours. 
Bee  tender  &  Loving  to  your  Mother,  Loving 
and  Kind  one  unto  another.  Stand  up  in  your 
places  for  God  and  for  His  Ordinances  while 
you  live,  then  hee  will  bee  for  you  &  Bless  you." 


THE  RIPEST  BREAD  IN  AMERICA." 


The  Pierce  House  369 

In  my  library  stands  an  antique  chair  of 
solid  cherry,  one  of  six  imported  by  Colonel 
Samuel  Pierce  from  England  at  the  time  of 
his  marriage  in  1765.  Others  of  the  set  were 
distributed  among  other  and  appreciative  de- 
scendants, long  before  the  taste  for  old  family 
furniture  waxed  into  a  craze  which  encourages 
forgeries  in  cabinet-making. 

In  front  of  the  modest  homestead  is  the  well, 
dug  in  1640,  still  yielding  clear,  cold,  delicious 
water,  believed  by  all  of  the  blood  to  be  the 
best  in  the  world.  In  1850  the  last  branch 
— full  of  leaves  and  acorns — fell  on  a  windless 
day  from  the  old  oak  that  had  shaded  the  well 
for  two  centuries. 

General  E.  W.  Pierce  quotes  from  Babson 
the  description  of  a  political  meeting  held  in 
Gloucester,  Mass.,  in  1806,  when  "  the  two 
parties  struggled  for  the  mastery  through  the 
day  and  amid  darkness  until  half  past  ten  at 
night.  .  .  .  The  Democrats  not  unreason- 
ably expected  success,  as  they  had  the  influence 
of  the  Pierce  family." 

His  Chronicle  adds: — "Indomitable  perse- 
verance is  a  trait  that  marks  their  character  in 
every  department  of  life  and  has  generally 
crowned  their  efforts  with  ultimate  success." 


37°      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

President  Franklin  Pierce  was  of  the  same 
stock;  also  Hon.  Benjamin  Pierce,  Librarian 
of  Harvard  University  from  1826  to  1831  ; 
Hon.  Oliver  Pierce  of  Maine,  obit,  in  1849,  at 
84  ;  Henry  Pierce  of  Brookline,  Mass.  ;  Hon. 
Andrew  Pierce  of  Dover,  N.  H.,  obit.  March 
5,  1875,  at  90;  Rev.  John  Pierce,  D.  D.,  of 
Brookline,  Mass.,  obit.  1849,  at  76;  Colonel 
Thomas  Wentworth  Pierce,  President  of  the 
Galveston,  Harrisburg,  and  San  Antonio  Rail- 
way ; — but  a  list  of  those  of  the  name  and 
blood  who  have  borne  well  their  part  in  church, 
commonwealth,  and  nation  would  weary  writer 
and  reader. 

The  Pierces  are  a  rugged,  indomitable  race, 
physically,  as  is  proved  by  a  cursory  examina- 
tion of  the  tables  of  births  and  deaths.  Within 
a  quarter-century,  two  Golden  Weddings  have 
been  celebrated  upon  what  remains  of  "ye 
greate  lotts."  The  first  was  that  of  Mr,  Lewis 
Pierce,  who  married  Sarah  Moseley  in  1808. 
Mr.  Pierce  died  July  4,  1871,  at  85.  The  sec- 
ond, that  of  Mr.  Lewis  Francis  Pierce,  married 
to  Melissa  Withington,  November  30,  1834, 
was  commemorated   November  30,  1884. 

By  the  clever  management  of  those  who  lent 
loving  hands  to  the  task  of  preparing  for  the 


THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  EVENING." 


The  Pierce  House  373 

second  of  these  anniversaries,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Pierce  were  kept  in  ignorance  of  the  coming 
festivities  until  the  guests  began  to  arrive.  The 
clan  rallied  from  near  and  from  far,  bearing 
love-gifts  and  eager  with  loving  congratula- 
tions and  wishes.  The  night  was  clear  and 
cold  ;  the  hoar-frost  crisped  the  turf  as  we  trod 
upon  it  to  muffle  our  approach.  In  the  very 
heart  of  the  pulsing  brightness  and  warmth  of 
the  interior  sat  the  queen  of  the  evening  in 
the  beauty  of  serene  old  age.  The  pleasur- 
able excitement  of  the  "  surprise  "  flushed  her 
cheeks  and  brightened  her  eyes,  until  we  had  a 
chastened  vision  of  the  bride  who  had  been 
lifted  over  the  worn  threshold  fifty  years  be- 
fore, to  dwell  in  the  home  of  her  husband's 
forefathers  all  the  days  of  her  blameless  life. 

I  doubt  if,  in  any  other  of  our  Colonial 
Homesteads,  two  Golden  Weddings  have  been 
celebrated  in  consecutive  generations  of  one 
family,  and  that  of  a  race  which  has  inhabited 
the  house  without  a  break  in  the  line  ever  since 
it  was  built,  two  hundred  and  fifty-odd  years 
ago. 

Mr.  L.  F.  Pierce  died  in  1888  at  the  age  of 
eighty.  The  Boston  Advertiser  paid  him  this 
just  tribute  : 


374       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

"  Those  traits  of  character  which  gained  for  Mr.  Pierce 
the  confidence  and  esteem  of  his  townsmen  in  his  public 
capacity,  made  him  as  friend  and  companion  beloved  by 
all  who  knew  him  intimately.  His  cheerful  greeting  and 
gracious  reception  in  themselves  repaid  the  visitor.  In 
conversation  he  was  never  at  loss  for  a  humorous  turn  or 
fitting  anecdote.  Though  making  no  pretensions  in  a 
literary  way,  he  was  a  reliable  antiquarian,  and  his  re- 
tentive memory  was  stored  with  facts  of  interest  and 
value  pertaining  to  the  history  of  the  town,  which  he 
took  pleasure  in  relating. 

"  During  the  war  he  visited  with  others  in  an  official 
capacity  the  several  companies  at  the  front,  and  was 
cordially  received. 

"  This  service,  though  of  the  civil  routine,  may  fitly  be 
mentioned  as  in  a  degree  identifying  him  with  the  patri- 
otic cause  in  this  war,  as  his  father,  Lewis  Pierce,  had 
been  in  the  war  of  1812,  and  his  grandfather,  Col. 
Samuel  Pierce,  in  that  of  the  Revolution,  both  in  the 
military  service." 

His  son,  Mr.  George  Francis  Pierce,  resides 
in  the  house  built  by  his  father  within  the 
grounds  of  the  old  homestead,  which  is  now 
occupied  by  Mr.  William  Augustus  Pierce. 


XVI 

THE   "PARSON   WILLIAMS"    HOUSE   IN   DEER- 
FIELD,    MASSACHUSETTS 

ROBERT,  ROXBURY,  came  from  Nor- 
wich, in  England,  was  admitted  freeman 
in  1638,  and  is  the  common  ancestor  of  the  di- 
vines, civilians,  and  warriors  of  this  name  who 
have  honored  the  country  of  their  birth." 

Thus  ambles  a  clause  of  the  introduction  to 
the  genealogical  record  of  the  "  Family  of 
Williams  in  America,  more  particularly  of  the 
Descendants  of  Robert  Williams  of  Roxbury," 
prepared  by  Stephen  W.  Williams,  M.D.,  A.M., 
"  Corresponding  Memb.  of  the  New  England 
Historic.  Genealog.  Society  of  the  National 
Institute  .  .  .  Hon.  Memb.  of  the  N.  Y.  Hist. 
Soc,  Memb.  elect  of  the  Royal  Society  of 
Northern  Antiquaries,  Copenhagen,  Denmark, 
etc.,  etc." 

We  read,  furthermore,  that  the  Williamses 
375 


376       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 


"  form  a  large  part  of  the  principality  of  Wales, 
somewhat  like  the  O's  of  Ireland  and  the  Mac's 
of  Scotland.  .  .  .  Some  of  the  name  in 
Wales  trace  their  lineage  as  far  back  as  Adam  " 
— is  a  bit  of  pleasantry  left,  like  a  sprig  of 
lavender,  between  the  musty  leaves.  An  ex- 
tract from  the  pedigree  of  Williams  of  Penrhyn 
is  set  down  in  grave  sincerity. 

"  This  most  ancient  family  of  the  principal- 
ity of  Wales  deduces  its  pedigree  with  singular 
perspicuity  from  Brutus,  son  of  Sylvius  Pos- 
thumius,  son  of  Ascaneus,  son  of  vEneas,  which 
Brutus  was  the  first  king  of  this  Island,  and 
began  to  reign  above  i  ioo  years  before  the 
birth  of  Christ." 

The  Encyclopedia  Ameri- 
cana says,  "  the  genealogy  of 
Oliver  Cromwell  is  traced 
to  Richard  Williams,  who 
assumed  the  name  of  Crom- 
well from  his  maternal  uncle, 
Thomas  Cromwell,  Secre- 
tary of  State  to  Henry  VIII 
and,  through  William  of 
Yevan,  up  to  the  barons  of 
the  eleventh  century." 
In    confirmation    of   the    statement  we   are 


WILLIAMS  CREST. 


The  "  Parson  Williams"  House     377 

informed  that  "  in  almost  all  their  deeds  and 
wills,  the  progeny  of  William  of  Yevan  signed 
themselves  '  Cromwell,  alias  Williams,'  down 
to  the  reign  of  James  the  First."  A  list  of  the 
descendants  of  Robert  of  Roxbury  who  have 
been  graduated  from  American  colleges,  dis- 
tinguished themselves  in  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States,  in  the  learned  professions,  in 
literature  and  art,  and  in  the  mercantile  world, 
would  be  a  sort  of  directory  of  intellectual 
progress,  financial  prosperity,  and  political  in- 
tegrity in  the  communities  favored  by  their 
residence.  This  is  not  haphazard  eulogy,  but 
fact.  William  Williams  of  Connecticut  signed 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  in  1776  al- 
though convinced  in  his  own  mind  that  the 
cause  of  the  Colonists  would  not  be  successful. 

'  '  I  have  done  much  to  prosecute  the  contest,'  he 
said  with  great  calmness.  '  And  one  thing  I  have  done 
which  the  British  will  never  pardon, — I  have  signed  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  I  shall  be  hung:  And,  to 
a  brother  legislator  who  congratulated  himself  that  he  had 
committed  no  overt  act  against  the  Crown — Mr.  Williams 
replied,  his  eyes  kindling  as  he  spoke,—4  Then  sir,  you 
deserve  to  be  hanged  for  not  having  done  your  duty.'  " 

Colonel  Ephraim  Williams,  scholar,  traveller, 
and  soldier,  fell  fighting  bravely  in  an  ambus- 


Z7%       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

cade  of  French  and  Indians,  September  8, 
1755,  "leaving  in  his  will  a  liberal  provision 
for  a  free  school  at  Williamstown.  On  this 
foundation  arose  the  College  which  was  called 
after  his  name." 

The  pages  of  the  shabby  volume  before  me 
are  starred  by  noble  names  and  worthy  deeds, 
and  still  the  story  goes  on. 

Among  the  multitude  of  heroes  who  quitted 
themselves  like  men  in  the  battle  of  life,  and 
the  martyrs  of  whom  this  present  world  is  not 
worthy,  none  made  a  braver  fight  or  suffered 
more  than  John  Williams,  a  descendant  in  the 
third  generation  from  Robert  of  Roxbury,  the 
founder  of  the  cis-atlantic  branch  of  the  re- 
markable family. 

At  the  early  age  of  nineteen  he  was  gradu- 
ated from  Harvard  College,  and  three  years 
afterward,  in  the  spring  of  1686,  was  installed 
as  "the  first  minister  of  Deerfield,  Massachu- 
setts." This  was  an  English  settlement  situ- 
ated about  thirty  miles  north  of  Agawam  (now 
Springfield)  just  where  the  Deerfield  River 
joins  the  Connecticut.  Two  thousand  acres 
of  land  formerly  (?)  owned  by  the  Pocomptuck 
Indians  was  deeded  by  the  General  Court  of 
Massachusetts  to  a  party  of  English  emigrants 


The  "  Parson  Williams"  House     379 

in  1 65 1.  The  village  of  Pocomptuck  had  no 
existence  until  twenty  years  later.  Metacomet, 
the  warlike  son  of  Massassoit,  better  known 
to  us  as  King  Philip,  succeeded  his  peaceful 
parent  in  1662,  and  in  1675  began  what  he 
meant  should  be  a  war  of  extermination  of  the 
pale-faced  usurpers.  The  founders  of  the  ham- 
let that  was  presently  rechristened  "  Deerfield" 
must  have  quoted  often  from  the  one  Book 
they  knew  by  heart,  how,  while  another  town 
was  in  building,  "  every  one,  with  one  of  his 
hands  wrought  in  the  work,  and  with  the  other 
held  a  weapon."  They  were  brave  of  heart  who 
planned  the  undertaking  while  Metacomet's 
summons,  like  the  roar  of  a  wounded  lion,  was 
drawing  into  his  train  the  remnants  of  scattered 
tribes  from  their  hiding-places  and  marshalling 
them  against  the  common  foe. 

Our  forefathers  needed  the  Old  Testament 
Scriptures  —  unrevised— and  made  much  of 
them.  When  the  chief  man  of  the  colony,  his 
sword  girded  upon  his  thigh  and  his  musket 
ready  to  his  hand,  read  aloud  to  his  work- 
men— 

"  Be  ye  not  afraid  of  them.  Remember  the 
Lord  which  is  great  and  terrible,  and  fight  for 
your  brethren,  your  sons  and  your  daughters, 


380       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

your  wives,  and  your  houses  " — they  listened 
as  to  an  oracle  given  that  day  from  heaven. 
If  we  would  enter  into  the  full  and  sympa- 
thetic comprehension  of  the  narrative  given  in 
this  chapter,  we  must  bear  these  things  con- 
tinually in  mind.  The  mainspring  of  individ- 
ual and  colonial  emprise  at  that  date  was  not 
so  much  patriotism  as  religion.  Abraham  did 
not  believe  more  devoutly  in  the  pledge — "  I 
will  give  unto  thee,  and  to  thy  seed  after  thee, 
the  land  wherein  thou  art  a  stranger" — than 
the  exile  to  whose  inmost  heart  England  was 
still  "home,"  the  earthly  Paradise  to  which  he 
must  not  look  back  while  the  dispossession  of 
the  Canaanite  was  bound  upon  his  conscience, 
and  Heaven  was  the  reward  of  him  that  over- 
came. 

The  infant  settlement  upon  the  very  frontier 
of  the  colony  was  not  five  years  old  when  an 
outgoing  train  of  wagons,  laden  with  grain 
and  guarded  by  soldiers,  was  attacked  by 
Indians  at  a  brook  that  skirts  the  western 
foot-hills,  and  seventy  men — "the  flower  of 
Essex  County  " — were  killed. 

Eleven  years  later,  the  dauntless,  because 
devout,  settlers  had  a  town,  and  as  a  town, 
voted  to  call  Rev.   John  Williams  to  be  their 


The  "  Parson  Williams  "  House     381 

minister  (the  title  "pastor"  was  not  yet  in 
vogue),  upon  a  salary  of  "  sixty  pounds  a  year 
for  the  present,  and,  four  or  five  years  after 
this  agreement,  to  add  to  the  salary,  and  make 
it  eighty  pounds." 

It  is  deliciously  refreshing  in  this  day  of 
itching  ears  in  the  pews  and  itineracy  in  the 
pulpit,  to  note  the  quiet  assumption  that  their 
minister  had  come  to  the  church,  as  his  people 
to  the  land,  "  to  stay."  The  four  or  five  years 
of  delay  in  the  increase  of  salary  were  allowed 
because  the  parish  in  that  time  would  become 
the  better  able  to  pay  him  more.  The  twenty 
pounds'  addition  to  the  original  stipend  was 
not  contingent  upon  his  "drawing"  qualities. 

He  had  ministered  unto  them  for  ten  years 
when  he  set  his  signature — crabbed  characters 
that  misrepresent  the  true  manliness  and  gentle 
heart  of  him  who  traced  them — to  the  follow- 
ing specification  : 

"  The  town  to  pay  their  salary  to  me  in 
wheat,  pease,  Indian  corn  and  pork,  at  the 
prices  stated,  viz  :  wheat  at  35.  $d.  per  bushel, 
Indian  corn  at  2s.  per  bushel,  fatted  pork  at 
2d.  per  pound.  These  being  the  terms  of  the 
bargain  made  with  me  at  first." 

Other  items  of  the  original   agreement  of 


382       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

which  this  is  only  a  formal  confirmation,  were 
that  "  they  would  give  him  sixteen  cow  com- 
mons of  meadow-land,  with  a  home-lot  that 
lyeth  on  the  meeting-house  hill — that  they  will 
build  him  a  house  forty-two  feet  long,  twenty 
feet  wide,  and  a  linto  on  the  backside  of  the 
house,  to  fence  his  home  lot,  and  within  two 
years  after  this  agreement,  to  build  him  a  barn, 
and  break  up  his  ploughing  land." 

By  the  time  the  twenty-foot-front  cottage, 
with  the  "  linto  "  (in  which  we  recognize  de- 
lightedly the  "  lean-to,"  beloved  of  the  New 
England  housekeeper  a  century  thereafter)  was 
completed,  the  young  minister  had  a  wife  ready 
to  take  care  of  it  and  of  him.  Eunice  Mather 
was  born  August  2,  1664,  and  was  therefore 
four  months  the  senior  of  her  husband,  whose 
birthday  was  December  10th  of  the  same  year. 
She  came  of  godly  parentage.  Of  her  paternal 
grandfather,  Richard  Mather  of  Dorchester, 
Mass.  it  is  written  that  "he  was,  for  fifty  years, 
never  detained  from  the  house  of  God,  not 
even  for  a  day,  by  sickness."  Her  mothers 
father  was  Rev.  John  Warham  of  Windham, 
Connecticut,  "  formerly  a  minister  of  Exeter, 
in  England."  As  the  saddest  passages  of  her 
history  will  show,  the  pastoress  was  a  woman 


The  "  Parson  Williams"  House     3*3 

of  fervent  piety  and  great  force  of  character. 
Her  tomb-stone  quaintly  testifies  that  she  was 
"  a  virtuous  and  desirable  consort "  to  the  faith- 
ful minister  of  the  isolated  parish. 

Between  Deerfield  and  St.  Johns  in  Canada 
the  wilderness  was  unbroken  by  a  single  Eng- 
lish settlement,  a  circumstance  that  caused  no 
especial  solicitude  to  the  inhabitants.  King 
Philip's  death  at  the  hands  of  Captain  Benja- 
min Church  in  1676  had,  they  believed,  virtu- 
ally ended  everything  like  sustained  Indian 
warfare.  Life  in  the  prospering  village  rolled 
on, — not  easily — but  without  serious  jar  or 
break.  Token  of  the  terrible  days  of  which 
mothers  spoke  shudderingly  to  children  who 
had  never  heard  the  war-whoop,  remained  in 
stout  stockades  surrounding  the  older  parts  of 
the  town,  and  perhaps  one  third  of  the  dwell- 
ings were  built  of  two  walls  of  logs  or  boards, 
the  space  between  the  inner  and  outer  being 
filled  with  bricks. 

The  parsonage  was  within  a  stockade,  to- 
gether with  several  other  dwellings,  but  not 
otherwise  defended.  In  it  were  born,  in  the 
seventeen  years  of  the  parents'  married  life, 
nine  children.  Eliakim,  the  first-born,  died  in 
early   infancy,    Eleazar,    Samuel,    Esther,  Ste- 


384       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

phen,  Eunice,  Warham,  the  second  Eliakim, 
and  John,  were  living  when  the  tragedy  oc- 
curred that  broke  up  the  happy  family-life  for- 
ever, and  stamped  a  bloody  cross  over  against 
the  history  of  the  lovely  New  England  town. 

I  have  wavered  long  between  the  inclination 
to  give  here  a  weird  and  dramatic  story  that 
has  the  attestation  of  several  respectable  nar- 
rators of  the  Deerfield  massacre,  and  my  un- 
willingness to  set  the  sanction  of  history  upon 
what  may  be  untrustworthy  tradition.  Be  it 
historical  or  legendary,  the  tale  of  the  "  Crusade 
of  the  Bell  "  is  too  interesting  to  be  omitted 
from  Colonial  Sagas. 

The  tale  is  emphatically  discredited,  I  am 
informed,  by  Miss  Alice  Baker  in  her  new  and 
valuable  True  Stories  of  New  England  Cap- 
tives carried  to  Canada  during  the  Old  French 
and  Indian  Wars, — and  meaner  authorities 
may  well  be  diffident  in  citing  that  which  she 
condemns  as  worse  than  doubtful.  In  the  In- 
troduction— entitled  "  The  Historical  Back- 
ground " — to  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Williams  Champ- 
ney's  charming  book — Great  Grandmother  s 
Girls  in  New  France,  the  author  says  : 

"  The  beautiful  legend  of  the  Deerfield  Bell 
which,  I  found,  was  firmly  believed  among  the 


The  "  Parson  Williams"  House     385 

Canadian  Indians,  I  have  not  used  because  our 
cheerful  and  painstaking  local  historian  and 
antiquarian,  the  Hon.  George  Sheldon,  to 
whom  I  am  greatly  indebted  for  material  for 
this  story,  has  reason  to  doubt  its  authenticity." 

With  this  candid  warning  to  the  imaginative 
reader,  I  proceed  to  the  recital  of  what  may 
or  may  not  be  a  myth,  but  which  accounts  sat- 
isfactorily for  an  irruption  for  which  hapless 
settlers  in  the  Pocumptuck  Valley  were  unpre- 
pared by  any  recent  hostile  demonstrations. 
Mrs.  Champney  writes  aptly  of  the  hush  that 
preceded  the  thunderbolt : 

<4  Then  came  a  little  interval  of  peace,  dur- 
ing which  France  and  England  were  engaged 
in  setting  up  their  chessmen  for  another  trial 
of  skill  on  the  great  American  chess-board." 

Our  legend  goes  back  of  this  calm  to  tell 
that,  several  years  before,  certain  pious  and 
great  folk  in  France  had  a  bell  cast  as  a  gift  to 
a  Jesuit  Mission  Church  in  Canada.  The  ves- 
sel containing  the  bell  was  captured  on  the 
way  across  the  sea,  by  a  British  privateer,  and 
the  cargo  taken  to  Boston  and  sold.  The 
precious  bell  was  bought  for  the  Deerfield 
church  and  duly  hung  in  the  steeple.  News 
travelled  slowly  then,  and  the  Canadian  Mis- 


386       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

sion  did  not  learn  until  many  months  had 
passed,  what  had  become  of  their  property. 
When  the  truth  was  known  a  French  priest 
began  to  urge  upon  his  neophytes  the  sacred 
duty  of  rescuing  the  treasure  from  heretic 
hands,  and  retaliation  for  the  sacrilege  done 
upon  a  consecrated  vessel  of  the  Church.  Ma- 
jor Hertel  de  Rouville  (who  was  made  a  Count 
for  his  conduct  of  the  enterprise)  adroitly 
seized  upon  the  religious  zeal  thus  inflamed, 
as  an  agent  in  carrying  out  a  projected  attack 
upon  the  unsuspecting  colonists.  Two  of  his 
brothers  were  among  the  officers  of  the  expedi- 
tion, which  consisted  of  two  hundred  French- 
men and  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  Indians. 
The  time  chosen  was  February  of  an  unusu- 
ally severe  winter.  The  snow  lay  deep  upon 
the  ground,  and  had  drifted  against  the  north 
side  of  the  stockade,  forming  an  inclined  plane 
from  the  points  of  the  pickets  to  the  level. 
This  was  frozen  so  hard  that  it  bore  the  weight 
of  the  Indians  as  they  ran  up  the  slope  and 
leaped  into  the  enclosure  below. 

The  sentinels,  made  careless  by  weeks  and 
months  of  security,  had  taken  refuge  from  the 
inclement  night  within  the  "  forts,"  as  the  spaces 
surrounded  by  pickets  were  called.     Separat- 


The  "  Parson  Williams"  House     387 

ing  into  parties,  the  invaders  went  from  house 
to  house,  crashing  in  doors  and  windows  and, 
in  many  homes,  tomahawking  the  occupants 
in  their  sleep. 

The  strongest  and  largest  house  in  the  vil- 
lage belonged  to  Captain  John  Sheldon,  and 
was  the  first  that  offered  any  resistance  to  the 
enemy.  The  door  was  thick  set  with  great 
nails,  and  barred  upon  the  inside.  Failing  to 
break  it  down,  the  Indians  contrived  to  hack  a 
hole  in  it  with  their  hatchets  and  through  the 
aperture  shot  Mrs.  Sheldon  as  she  was  hur- 
riedly dressing.  When  they,  at  last,  effected  an 
entrance,  they  used  the  Sheldon  house  and  the 
church  as  temporary  jails  for  the  prisoners  col- 
lected from  different  parts  of  the  town.  But 
one  building  held  out  successfully  against  them 
— one  of  the  double-walled  block-houses,  de- 
fended by  seven  men  and  "a  few  women." 
From  the  narrow  windows  a  sharp  fire  was 
kept  up  that  killed  several  of  the  enemy  and 
drove  the  rest  back. 

There  slept  in  the  Parsonage  that  night,  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Williams  and  six  children.  Eleazar, 
the  eldest  living  child,  a  lad  of  sixteen,  was  ab- 
sent from  home  on  a  visit  to  a  neighboring 
town.       Besides    the    family    proper,   Captain 


388       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

Stoddard  and  another  soldier  lodged  there,  and 
a  negro  servant  had  an  attic  room.  With  Mrs. 
Williams,  in  bed,  was  an  infant  that  had  been 
born  on  January  15th.  The  attack  on  the 
town  was  made  February  29,  1 704  being  Leap 
Year. 

By  the  kindness  of  Mrs.  Champney  I  am 
enabled  to  construct  the  story  of  what  followed 
from  Mr.  Williams's  own  account  of  it.  In 
1 706,  he  wrote  out  in  full  the  history  of  his 
captivity  under  the  title  of  The  Redeemed  Cap- 
tive, Returning  to  Zion.  The  book,  dedicated 
to  "  His  Excellency  Joseph  Dudley,  Esq.,  Cap- 
tain General  and  Governor  in  Chief,  in  and 
over  his  Majesty's  Provinces  of  the  Massachu- 
setts Bay  in  New  England,  etc.''  lies  open  be- 
fore me  as  I  write.  It  is  a  thin  volume  of  one 
hundred  and  fifty-four  pages,  bound  in  brown 
leather  and  stained  on  every  page  with  the 
mysterious  blotches  which  are  the  thumb-marks 
of  Time.  To  him  who  would  draw  colonial 
history  from  the  fountain-head,  it  is  worth  more 
than  its  weight  in  gold. 

"  They  came  to  my  house  in  the  beginning  of  the  on- 
set," writes  the  minister,  "  and  by  their  violent  endeavors 
to  break  open  doors  and  windows  with  axes  and  hatchets 
awaked  me  out  of  sleep  ;  on  which  I  leaped  out  of  bed. 


DOOR  FROM  SHELDON  HOUSE  HACKED  BY  INDIANS. 


The  "  Parson  Williams"  House    391 

and  running  towards  the  door,  perceived  the  enemy  mak- 
ing their  entrance  into  the  house  ;  I  called  to  awaken 
two  soldiers,  in  the  chamber  ;  and  returning  toward  my 
bedside  for  my  arm,  the  enemy  immediately  broke  into 
the  room,  I  judge,  to  the  number  of  twenty  with  painted 
faces,  and  hideous  acclamations.  I  reached  up  my  hands 
to  the  bed  tester,  for  my  pistol,  uttering  a  short  petition 
to  God,  for  everlasting  mercies  for  me  and  mine,  on  the  ac- 
count of  the  merits  of  our  glorified  Redeemer  ;  expecting 
a  present  passage  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of 
death,  saying  in  myself — '  /  said  in  the  cutting  of  my  days, 
I  shall  go  to  the  gates  of  the  grave  :  I  am  deprived  of  the 
residue  of  my  years.  I  said,  I  shall  not  see  the  Lord,  even 
the  Lord,  in  the  land  of  the  living  ;  L  shall  behold  man  no 
more,  with  the  inhabitants  of  the  world* 

"  Taking  down  my  pistol,  I  cocked  it  and  put  it  to  the 
breast  of  the  first  Indian  that  came  up  ;  but  my  pistol 
missing  fire,  I  was  seized  by  three  Indians  who  disarmed 
me  and  bound  me  naked,  as  I  was  in  my  shirt,  and  so  I 
stood  for  the  space  of  an  hour.  Binding  me,  they  told 
me  they  would  carry  me  to  Quebeck.  My  Pistol  missing 
fire,  was  an  occasion  of  my  life's  being  preserved  ;  since 
which  I  have  also  found  it  profitable  to  be  crossed  in  my 
own  will." 

One  of  the  three  captors  was  killed  at  sun- 
rise by  a  well-aimed  shot  from  the  block-house 
garrisoned  by  the  seven  men  "  and  a  few  wo- 
men." 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Williams  and  four  of  the  larger 
children   were   allowed   to    dress    themselves. 


392       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

The  baby  and  Eliakim,  the  next  in  age,  were 
killed  before  the  parents'  eyes  as  too  young  to 
endure  the  journey.  The  negro  woman  shared 
their  fate.  Captain  John  Stoddard  leaped 
from  a  window  and  escaped  across  the  river  to 
Hatfield,  the  nearest  town,  where  he  gave  the 
alarm.  Deerfield  was  fired  and  the  survivors 
of  the  massacre,  in  number  about  one  hundred 
and  twelve,  were  driven  over  the  river  and  col- 
lected at  the  foot  of  a  mountain  under  guard, 
while  preparations  were  made  for  departure. 

"  The  journey  being  at  least  three  hundred 
miles  we  were  to  travel ;  the  snow  up  to  the 
knees,  and  we  never  inured  to  such  hardships 
and  fatigues ;  the  place  we  were  to  be  carried 
to,  a  Popish  country y 

The  last  section  of  the  above  paragraph 
jars  upon  nineteenth-century  sensibilities  as  a 
false  note  in  a  recital  that  might  have  been 
written  with  the  mourner's  heart-blood.  As 
we  read  later  pages  of  the  story  we  cannot 
doubt  that  the  reflection  was  an  added  pang. 

Snowshoes  were  fitted  upon  the  captives' 
feet,  and  children  who  could  not  tramp  through 
four  feet  of  crusty  snow,  were  distributed  among 
such  of  the  Indians  as  were  willing  to  carry 
them  on  their  shoulders.     The  task  was  inter- 


The  "  Parson  Williams  "  House     393 

rupted  by  an  incident  that  must  have  kindled 
a  spark  of  hope  in  the  despairing  hearts  of  the 
prisoners.  The  rescue-party  from  Hatfield 
"beat  out  a  company  that  remained  in  the 
town  and  pursued  them  to  the  river,  killing 
and  wounding  many  of  them  ;  but  the  body  of 
the  army" — the  French  and  Indians — "being 
alarmed,  they  repulsed  those  few  English  that 
pursued  them. 

"  After  this,  we  went  up  the  mountain,  and  saw  the 
smoke  of  the  fires  in  the  town  and  beheld  the  awful 
desolations  of  Deerfield  :  And  before  we  marched  any 
farther,  they  killed  a  sucking  child  of  the  English.  There 
were  slain  by  the  enemy  of  the  inhabitants  of  Deerfield, 
to  the  number  of  thirty-eight,  besides  nine  of  the  neigh- 
boring towns." 

These  nine  were  of  those  who  risked  their 
lives  in  the  ineffectual  attempt  to  succor  the 
unfortunates. 

Thus  began  the  awful  march  of  twenty-five 
days  to  the  village  of  Chamblee,  about  fifteen 
miles  from  Montreal. 

On  the  morning  of  the  second  day  Mr.  Wil- 
liams changed  "  masters"  (they  were  that  al- 
ready), and  was  permitted  by  the  new  guard  to 
walk  beside  his  wife,  give  her  his  arm,  and  to 
talk  freely  with  her.      I  shrink  from  using  other 


394      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

words  than  his  in  describing  what  passed  be- 
tween the  sorrowing  pair  during  the  last  hours 
they  were  to  spend  together  on  earth. 

"On  the  way" — (and  what  a  way  !) — "  we  discoursed 
of  the  happiness  of  those  who  had  a  right  to  an  house  not 
made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens,  and  God  for  a 
father  and  friend,  as,  also,  that  it  was  our  reasonable 
duty,  quietly  to  submit  to  the  will  of  God  and  to  say,  the 
will  of  the  Lord  be  done.  My  wife  told  me  her  strength 
of  body  began  to  fail,  and  that  I  must  expect  to  part 
with  her,  saying  she  hoped  God  would  preserve  my  life, 
and  the  life  of  some,  if  not  of  all  our  children,  with  us  ; 
and  commended  to  me,  under  God,  the  care  of  them. 
She  never  spake  any  discontented  word  as  to  what  had 
befallen  us,  but  with  suitable  expressions  justified  God 
in  what  had  happened.  We  soon  made  a  halt  in  which 
time  my  chief  master  came  up,  upon  which  I  was  put 
upon  marching  with  the  foremost,  and  so  made  to  take 
my  last  farewell  of  my  dear  wife,  the  desire  of  my  eyes, 
and  companion  in  many  mercies  and  afflictions.  Upon 
our  separation  from  each  other,  we  asked  for  each  other, 
grace  sufficient  for  what  God  should  call  us  to." 

I  know  of  but  one  true  narrative  of  human 
suffering  and  pious  resignation  comparable 
with  that  which  I  have  copied  from  the  coarse 
paper,  discolored  by  the  damps  of  almost  two 
centuries. 

When  her  straining  eyes  lost  sight  of  her 
husband's  form  bending  under  the  pack  lashed 


The  "Parson  Williams"  House     395 

upon  his  shoulders  by  his  "  master,"  this  wo- 
man, who  had  seen  within  forty-eight  hours 
two  of  her  children  die  under  the  tomahawk, 
and  four  more,  including  two  tender  daugh- 
ters, driven  into  captivity  worse  than  death, 
sat  down  upon  the  snow  to  await  the  order  to 
march,  and  "  spent  the  few  remaining  minutes 
of  her  stay  in  reading  the  Holy  Scriptures." 
To  what  portion  of  them  could  she  turn  with 
such  certainty  of  finding  an  echo  of  her  desola- 
tion and  a  stay  to  her  sublime  faith,  as  to  the 
chapter  that  ends  with,  "  In  all  this  Job  sinned 
not,  nor  attributed  folly  to  God  ?  " 

"  With  suitable  expressions  "  she  had  justified 
Him  in  what  had  happened.  It  was  her  habit, 
we  are  told,  "  personally  every  day  to  delight 
her  soul  in  reading,  praying,  meditating  on, 
and  over  by  herself  in  her  closet,"  the  Bible 
which  she  had  not  forgotten  to  bring  away 
from  the  lost  home  in  whose  burning  the  bodies 
of  her  slain  children  were  consumed.  Her 
oratory  on  this,  the  second  day  of  a  wintry 
March,  was  upon  the  bank  of  Green  River, 
about  hvQ  miles  from  the  present  town  of  Green- 
field. In  summer  it  is  shallowed  to  an  insig- 
nificant creek.  Swollen  by  the  heavy  snows, 
it  was  then  nearly  two  feet  deep  and  an  ice- 


396       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

cold  torrent.  The  party  that  included  her  hus- 
band and  eleven-year-old  Stephen,  had  waded 
through  the  swift  current  and  were  out  of  sight 
upon  the  wooded  heights  beyond,  when  Mrs. 
Williams  and  her  companions  were  ordered  to 
follow.  She  was  not  half-way  across  when  the 
water  bore  her  off  her  feet  and,  as  she  fell,  went 
over  her  head.  Weakened  by  her  recent  ill- 
ness and  the  hardships  and  distress  of  the  past 
two  days,  she  dragged  herself  up  and  to  the 
shore,  sinking  there  too  much  exhausted  to 
walk  a  step  further,  much  less  to  climb  the 
mountain  at  the  foot  of  which  she  lay.  With 
one  stroke  of  his  tomahawk  her  "  master  "  put 
her  out  of  pain  and  forever  beyond  the  reach 
of  sorrow. 

A  little  company  of  her  former  neighbors, 
following  cautiously  upon  the  Indians'  trail 
some  days  later,  found  her  body,  brought  it 
back  to  Deerfield  and  pfave  it  loving  burial. 
The  inscription  upon  the  time-battered  stone 
in  the  town  burying-ground  may  still  be  de- 
ciphered : 

"  Here  lyeth  the  body  of  Mrs.  Eunice  Williams,  the 
virtuous  and  desirable  consort  of  the  Rev.  John  Williams 
and  daughter  of  Rev.  Eleazar  and  Mrs.  Esther  Mather  of 
Northampton.     She  was  born  Aug.  2,  1664,  and  fell  by  the 


The  "  Parson  Williams"  House     397 

rage   of  the   barbarous   enemy,    March   I.    J/oj-4.     Her 
children  rise  up  and  call  her  blessed." 

The  terrible  news  was  elicited  by  the  hus- 
band from  other  of  the  prisoners  who  overtook 
him  at  the  top  of  the  hill  where  he  was  per- 
mitted by  his  master  to  rest  for  a  few  minutes 
and  to  lay  aside  his  pack.  Mr.  Williams  was 
begging  to  be  also  allowed  to  return  to  look  after 
his  wife  as  the  sad  train  came  up  with  him.  To 
the  horror  of  the  shock  succeeded  "  comfort- 
able hopes  of  her  being  taken  away,  in  mercy 
to  herself  from  the  evils  we  were  to  see,  feel, 
and  suffer  under,  and  joined  to  the  assembly  of 
the  spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect,  Xo  rest  in 
peace  and  joy  unspeakable  and  full  of  glory!' 

To  the  devout  believer  it  was  not  a  far  cry 
from  the  bleak  mountain-top  to  the  gates  of 
the  Celestial  City.  While  he  toiled  onward, 
taunted  by  his  master  for  the  tears  he  could 
not  restrain,  his  soul  arose  in  the  last  prayer 
he  was  to  offer  for  the  wife  of  his  youth  : 

"  I  begged  of  God  to  overrule  in  his  providence  that 
the  corpse  of  one  so  dear  to  me,  and  whose  spirit  he  had 
taken  to  dwell  with  him  in  glory,  might  meet  with  a 
Christian  burial,  and  not  be  left  for  meat  to  the  fowls  of 
the  air,  and  the  beasts  of  the  earth.  A  mercy  that  God 
graciously  vouchsafed  to  grant." 


398       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

Before  hurrying  on  to  the  arrival  of  the 
captives  at  Chamblee,  I  cannot  refrain  from 
transcribing  a  passage  that  is  infinitely  pathetic 
and  also,  in  the  ending,  graphically  significant 
of  the  militant  Protestantism  interwoven  with 
the  very  roots  of  our  minister's  being. 

"  On  the  Sabbath  day,  {March  5,)  we  rested,  and  I  was 
permitted  to  pray,  and  to  preach  to  the  captives.  The 
place  of  scripture  spoken  from,  was  Lam.  i.  18  :  The 
Lord  is  righteous,  for  I  have  rebelled  against  his  command- 
ment :  Hear  L pray  you,  all  people,  and  behold  my  sorrow  : 
My  virgins  and  my  young  men  are  gone  into  captivity. 

"  The  enemy  who  said  to  us,  Sing  us  one  of  Zions  songs, 
were  ready  some  of  them,  to  upbraid  us,  because  our 
singing  was  not  so  loud  as  theirs.  When  the  Macquas 
and  Indians  were  chief  in  power,  we  had  this  revival  in 
our  bondage,  to  join  together  in  the  worship  of  God, 
and  encourage  one  another  to  a  patient  bearing  the 
indignation  of  the  Lord,  till  he  should  plead  our  cause. 
When  we  arrived  at  New  France  "  (Canada)  "  we  were 
forbidden  praying  with  one  another \  or  joining  together  in 
the  service  of  God" 

Four  closely  printed  pages  are  devoted  to 
struggles  with  the  Jesuits  at  Fort  St.  Francois, 
who  invited  him  to  dinner,  and,  after  the  meal, 
informed  him  that  he,  with  the  other  captives, 
would  be  forced  to  attend  mass.  He  argued 
with  them  upon  the  disputed  points  between 


o    i 

CO 

<   ° 

i  I 

< 

DC 

O 


The  "  Parson  Williams"  House     401 

the  two  communions  until  their  breath  and 
patience  gave  out.  When  "  forcibly  pulled  by 
the  head  and  shoulders  out  of  the  wigwam  into 
the  church,"  he  listened,  smiling  pityingly  at 
the  "  great  confusion,  where  there  should  be 
gospel  order "  ;  and  when  the  holy  fathers 
returned  to  the  charge,  met  them  with  "  what 
Christ  said  of  the  traditions  of  men."  At  the 
end  of  the  controversy  : — 

14  I  told  them  that  it  was  my  comfort  that 
Christ  was  to  be  my  judge,  and  not  they  at 
the  great  day.  As  for  their  censuring  and 
judging  me,  I  was  not  moved  with  it." 

Neither  was  he  shaken  when  his  master,  with 
the  fiery  zeal  of  a  proselyte,  commanded  him, 
tomahawk  in  air,  to  kiss  a  crucifix  the  savage 
had  pulled  from  his  own  neck.  "And  seeing  I 
was  not  moved,  threw  down  his  hatchet,  saying 
he  would  first  bite  off  all  my  nails  if  I  refused. 
He  set  his  teeth  in  my  thumb-nail,  and 
gave  a  gripe,  and  then  said,  No  good  minister, 
no  love  God,  as  bad  as  the  Devil  \  and  so  left 
off." 

Again,  in  Montreal,  he  did  not  blench  in  the 
fire  of  polemics  and  persecution,  and  wrangled 
valiantly  with  the  Jesuits  in  Quebec  over  the 
dinner  with   which  they  hoped  to  mollify  him. 


402       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

The  crucial  test  was  applied  when  the  Superior 
of  the  Jesuits,  after  eight  months  of  the  cap- 
tivity had  dragged  by,  offered  to  restore  his 
children  to  him  and  provide  an  honorable 
maintenance  for  them  and  for  him  if  he  would 
abjure  his  faith. 

With  the  reply,  the  lofty  intrepidity  of  which 
touches  sublimity,  I  shut  the  priceless  little 
book : 

"  I  answered,  'Sir,  if  I  thought  your  religion 
to  be  true,  I  would  embrace  it  freely  without  any 
such  offer,  but  so  long  as  I  believe  it  to  be  what 
it  is,  the  offer  of  the  whole  world  is  of  no  more 
value  to  me  than  a  BLACKBERRY.'  " 

Italics  and  capitals  are  his  own. 


XVII 

THE  PARSON  WILLIAMS  HOUSE  AT 
DEERFIELD,  MASSACHUSETTS 

(  Concluded) 

IN  company  with  fifty-seven  of  his  flock,  out 
of  the  hundred  and  twelve  who  were  car- 
ried into  captivity  with  him,  on  that  black 
February  29,  1 704,  Mr.  Williams  arrived  in 
Boston  on  November  21,  1706.  The  colonial 
authorities,  backed  by  the  Home  government, 
had  not  ceased  to  labor  for  their  ransom  dur- 
ing all  these  dreary  and  painful  months,  and 
the  capital  city  received  him  with  open  arms. 

Two  of  his  children  returned  with  him — 
Samuel  and  Esther.  Stephen  had  been  ran- 
somed a  year  before  ;  Warham  was  restored 
to  his  father's  arms  in  1707, — "  having  entirely 
lost  the  English  language,  and  could  speak 
nothing  but   French."     Eleazar,  who  had  es- 

403 


404       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

caped  captivity  by  his  temporary  absence  from 
Deerfield,  had  been  cared  for  by  friends  in  his 
father's  absence,  and  was  now  at  Harvard.  Of 
the  missing  Eunice  we  shall  hear  more  and 
somewhat  at  length  presently. 

The  minister  delayed  his  return  to  Deer- 
field  for  more  than  a  month,  naturally  enough, 
it  seems  to  us.  Inured  as  he  was  to  calamity, 
and  complete  as  was  his  justification  of  the 
ways  of  God,  he  was  but  a  man,  and  the 
scenes  attending  his  departure  from  home 
were  sufficiently  vivid  in  memory  without  the 
harrowing  associations  that  must  be  awakened 
by  revisiting  the  spot.  Within  ten  days  after 
his  arrival  in  Boston  he  was  waited  upon  by  a 
committee  from  the  Deerfield  church,  armed 
with  a  unanimous  call  to  him  to  renew  his 
work  among  them.  This  committee  no  doubt 
formed  a  part  of  the  great  crowd  that  packed 
the  "Boston  Lecture"  on  December  5,  1706, 
to  hear  "  A  Sermon  by  John  Williams,  Pas- 
tor of  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Deerfield  soon 
after  his  return  from  captivity." 

The  text  was  double-headed  : 

"  Psal.  cvii.,  13,  14,  15,  32. 

"  '  He  saved  them  out  of  their  distresses.  He  brought  them 
out  of  darkness,  and  the  shado:c<  of  death  ;  and  brake  their 


The  "  Parson  Williams"  House     407 

bands  in  sunder.  O,  that  men  would  praise  the  Lord  for 
his  goodness  ;  and  for  his  wonderful  works  to  the  children 
0/  men.  .  .  .  Let  them  exalt  him  also  in  the  congrega- 
tion of  the  people,  and  praise  him  in  the  assembly  of  the  elect.' 

"  Psal.  xxxiv.,  3. 

"  *  O,  magnify  the  Lord  with  me,  and  let  us  exalt  his  name 
together'  " 

In  the  sincerity  of  their  thankfulness  at  hav- 
ing him  back  with  them,  the  Deerfield  church 
and  parish  built  for  him  the  house  which  is 
still  standing  in  Old  Deerfield,  and  upon  a 
scale  that  dwarfs  our  recollection  of  the 
twenty-by-forty  cottage  with  the  convenient 
"linto." 

"  January  9,  1706-7.  Att  a  Legall  Town  meeting  in 
Deerfield,  It  was  yn  agreed  and  voted  yt  ye  Towne 
would  build  a  house  for  Mr.  Jno.  Williams  in  Derfield 
as  big  as  Eus.  Jno.  Sheldon's,  a  back  room  as  big  as 
may  be  thought  convenient.  It  was  also  voted  yt  Eus. 
Jno.  Sheldon,  Sar  Thomas  ffrench,  and  Edward  Alln 
ware  chosen  a  Comity  for  carying  on  said  work."  * — 
History  of  Deerfield,  vol.  i.,  p.  360. 

The  new  parsonage  was  two  stories  in  height, 
with  four  rooms  upon  each  floor.     The  walls 

*  In  1729.  or  thereabouts,  a  visitor  to  Deerfield  made  a  pen-and- 
ink  sketch  of  the  Williams  church  and  homestead.  Mrs.  Eels,  an 
elderly  resident  of  the  town,  founded  upon  this  the  painting  from 
which  is  taken  our  picture  of  the  buildings  in  their  original  form. 
No  other  representation  of  these  inte-  /elics  of  the  age  of  the 

captivity  is  extant. 


408       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

were  handsomely  panelled.  A  wide  hall  ran 
through  the  centre  of  the  lower  story,  and  a 
fine  staircase  wound  deliberately  to  the  upper. 
A  marked  peculiarity  of  the  dwelling,  as  origi- 
nally constructed,  was  a  secret  staircase  that 
crooked  itself  about  the  chimney  from  the 
attic — where  the  terminus  was  a  cubby-hole 
of  a  room,  less  than  six  feet  square,  nestled 
beneath  the  slope  of  the  roof — down  to  the 
cellar-stairs,  and  so  on  to  a  tunnel  leading  to 
the  river.  So  many  of  the  better  class  of 
homesteads  erected  late  in  the  seventeenth, 
and  early  in  the  eighteenth,  century  were 
provided  with  similar  passages  that  there  is 
little  cause  for  the  variety  of  conjectures  as 
to  their  excuses  and  uses  indulged  in  by  the 
visitor  of  our  pacific  period.  Inspectors  of 
the  Deerfield  manse  have  been  especially 
ingenious  in  suggestions  respecting  the  stairs 
and  subterranean  gallery  that  formerly  existed 
here.  The  most  obvious  and  rational  explan- 
ation, to  wit,  that  the  parish — in  view  of  the 
fact  that,  as  a  local  historian  puts  it,  "  Mr. 
Williams,  after  a  serious  consideration,  ac- 
cepted the  call,  although  the  war  continued 
with  unabated  fury,  and  the  inhabitants  were 
kept  in  a  constant  state  of  alarm  " — resolved  to 


The  "  Parson  Williams"  House     4°9 

put  their  beloved  pastor  and  his  household,  so 
far  as  was  possible,  beyond  the  hazard  of  a  repe- 
tition of  the  horrors  and  perils  that  had  bereft 
them  of  him  less  than  three  years  before. 
The  inner  staircase,  the  hiding-place  under  the 
roof,  and  the  underground  escape-way,  as  a 
last  resort,  should  the  house  be  fired  over  the 
colonists'  heads,  were  already  an  old  story. 
The  provision  of  all  three  was  a  continual 
object-lesson  to  the  "  redeemed  captive  "  of 
their  desire  and  intention  that  he  should  live 
and  die  among  them. 

Others  will  have  it,  upon  what  authority  we 
know  not,  that  Mr.  Williams,  made  timid  by 
the  past,  himself  went  to  the  expense  and 
trouble  of  having  these  constructed.  A  third 
party  is  ready  with  stories  of  smuggling  car- 
ried on  by  the  most  righteous  men  of  the 
colony,  and  hints  as  to  the  availability  of  the 
passage-cellar  as  a  storehouse  for  valuable 
cargoes  landed  from  boats  at  night  in  the 
thickets  that  bordered  Deerfield  River.  It 
cannot  be  controverted  that  many  fortunes  were 
made,  and  now  and  then  one  was  lost,  in  com- 
mercial enterprises  of  this  complexion, — trans- 
actions so  much  more  respectable  in  our  for- 
bears' eyes  than  in  ours,  that  the  possibility  of 


4*o      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

our  hero's  connivance  in  them  need  not  bar  him 
out  from  our  respectful  sympathy.  All  the 
same,  we  prefer  not  to  believe  the  unflattering 
tale. 

Almost  as  unlikely  is  the  theory  that  the 
carefully  constructed  stairway  was  merely  a 
sort  of  kitchen  back-stairs  which,  by  and  by, 
was  considered  useless  and  done  away  with, 
the  landings  being  converted  into  pantries 
which  are  commonplace  enough  as  we  now 
see  them.  A  beautiful  china-closet  of  red 
cedar,  the  top  carved  like  a  shell,  is  in  the 
Memorial  Hall  of  Deerfield,  "  dedicated  with 
fitting  observance,"  Sept.  8,  1880,  such  men  as 
Charles  Dudley  Warner,  Charles  Eliot  Norton, 
and  George  William  Curtis  bearing  a  part  in 
the  solemn  ceremony.  The  closet  was  set  up  in 
the  new  Parsonage  for  the  use  of  Mr.  Williams's 
second  wife  when  he  married  within  a  year 
after  his  second  installation  over  the  church. 
She  was  Miss  Abigail  Allen  of  Windsor, 
Connecticut,  and  a  cousin  of  Eunice  Mather. 
To  them  were  born  five  children.  Among 
them  was  a  second  John,  named,  probably  in 
tenderly  compassionate  memory  of  the  month- 
old  nursling  torn  by  murderous  hands  from  his 
mother's  breast.     Those  of  us  who  have  read 


4"       CEDAR  CHINA-CLOSET  FROM  "  PARSON  WILLIAMS"  HOUSE. 


The  "  Parson  Williams"  House     4J3 

Rose  Terry  Cooke's  capital  tale  of  Freedom 
Wheeler  s  Controversy,  pay  fresh  tribute  to 
her  rare  skill  in  depicting  New  England  traits 
and  customs,  in  seeing  that  a  third  Eliakim 
stands  next  to  John  on  the  list.  They  wasted 
no  middle  names  upon  babies,  at  that  date, 
and  even  at  that  had  not  enough  to  go 
around. 

The  second  John,  born  November  23,  1709, 
was  less  than  a  year  old  when  his  father  ac- 
cepted the  office  of  chaplain  in  the  movement 
against  Canada  led  by  Admiral  Walker  and 
General  Hill,  and  in  the  next  year  revisited  the 
land  of  his  captivity  yet  again,  in  the  saine  capa- 
city in  a  winter  expedition  under  the  conduct 
of  Colonel,  formerly  Captain,  Stoddard  for 
the  express  purpose  of  redeeming  prisoners. 
For  some  reason,  not  given  by  his  biographer, 
he  made  a  brief  sojourn  in  the  unfriendly 
country.  He  was  back  in  Deerfield  before 
three  months  were  over,  and  remained  there 
until  his  death,  June  12,  1729,  in  the  sixty- 
fifth  year  of  his  age  and  the  forty-fourth  of 
his  ministry.  His  people  mourned  for  him  as 
for  a  prophet  and  leader. 

One  biographical  notice,  penned  by  a  brother 
clergyman,  cites  his 


4*4       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

"  voluntary  abandonment  of  the  scenes  of  his  beloved 
nativity,  secure  from  the  incursions  of  the  savages,  to 
settle  in  a  frontier  place,  perpetually  exposed  to  their 
depredations  .  .  .  and  his  return  to  the  work  of  the 
ministry,  subject  to  the  same  dangers,  after  the  com- 
plicated afflictions  of  his  captivity,"  as  proofs  of  ardent 
love  for  the  people  of  his  care  ;  and  that  "  he  was  ani- 
mated with  the  spirit  of  a  martyr  in  the  advancement  of 
the  Gospel." 

This  Representative  Man  of  the  New  Eng- 
land of  that  hard  and  heroic  period  was  the 
very  stoutest  stuff  of  which  martyrs  are  made. 
He  fought  what  his  honest  soul  conceived  to 
be  deadly  error  as  Christian  fought  Apollyon. 
A  volume  written  by  him  is  still  preserved  as  a 
literary  and  ecclesiastical  curiosity.  His 
autograph  is  upon  the  flyleaf  and  the  title- 
page  bears  the  caption  :  Some  joco-serious  re- 
flections upon  Rom zsh  foppej'ies.  1 1  was  penned 
in  a  lighter  vein  than  was  common  with  him 
at  sight  of  the  scarlet  flag.  In  summing  up 
his  "  afflictions  and  trials  ;  my  wife  and  two 
children  killed,  and  many  of  my  neighbors, 
and  myself  and  so  many  of  my  children  and 
friends  in  a  Popish  captivity"  he  meant  the 
italicized  words  to  be  the  climax  of  his 
sorrows. 

Hearing    that    his    son    Samuel    had    been 


The  "  Parson  Williams"  House    4T5 

"  turned  to  Popery,"  he  made  time  in  the 
intervals  of  his  labors  under  a  taskmaster,  to 
write  a  letter  of  ten  pages  to  the  lad,  which 
brought  him  back  to  the  old  fold,  in  which  he 
remained,  a  joy  and  comfort  to  his  father,  until 
his  death  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-four. 

Eleazar  was  ordained  to  the  work  of  the 
ministry  in  1710,  and  his  children  played  about 
their  grandfather's  knees  before  he  went  to  his 
reward.  Stephen,  whose  narrative  of  What 
befell  Stephen  Williams  in  his  Captivity,  indited 
soon  after  his  release,  is  an  extraordinary  pro- 
duction for  a  boy  of  twelve,  also  chose  his 
father's  profession,  after  his  graduation  from 
Harvard,  and  was  installed  in  the  picturesque 
town  of  Longmeadow,  Massachusetts,  in  1718. 
He  served  his  country  as  chaplain  in  three 
campaigns,  received  the  honorary  degree  of 
Doctor  of  Divinity  from  Yale  and  also  from 
Dartmouth,  and  died,  full  of  years  and  honors, 
in  the  ninetieth  year  of  his  age.  Seven  grown 
sons  stood  by  the  coffin  at  his  funeral,  three 
of  whom  were  clergymen. 

The  grand  old  hero  of  Deerfield  saw  still  a 
third  son  in  the  pulpit,. — Warham,  who  was  but 
four  years  old  at  the  captivity,  and  so  wrought 
upon  the  compassion  of  the  Indians  that  they 


416       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

carried  him  in  their  arms  and  drew  him  on 
their  sledges  until  they  reached  Montreal. 
There,  as  his  father  writes,  "  a  French  gentle- 
woman, pitying  the  child,  redeemed  it  out  of 
the  hands  of  the  heathen."  He,  like  his 
brothers,  was  a  Harvard  graduate,  and  was 
"  ordained  minister  of  Watertown,  west  pre- 
cinct,  now  Waltham,    Mass.,"  June   n,    1723. 

"  A  burning  and  shining  light  of  superior 
natural  powers  and  acquired  abilities,"  was  the 
encomium  passed  upon  him  by  one  who  knew 
him  and  his  work  well.     He  died,  June  22,  1 75 1. 

Of  the  redeemed  captives  gathered  by  the 
father  in  the  new  home  at  Deerfield,  Esther, 
the  only  daughter  left  to  him,  has  compara- 
tively little  notice  from  biographers.  Her  fath- 
er's diary  (dated,  Sabbath,  March  12,  1704), 
couples  her  with  her  brother  Samuel  :  "  My 
son  Samuel  and  my  eldest  daughter  were 
pitied,  so  as  to  be  drawn  on  sleighs  when  un- 
able to  travel.  And  though  they  suffered  very 
much  through  scarcity  of  food  and  tedious 
journeys,  they  were  carried  through  to 
Montreal." 

We  may  picture  her  to  ourselves  as  the 
grave-eyed,  motherly  eldest  daughter  of  the 
manse,    precocious    in    care-taking,   who    had 


The  "  Parson  Williams"  House    4l7 

been  the  mother's  right  hand  and  confidante. 
We  know  nothing  except  that  during  her  cap- 
tivity she  was  under  the  care  of  Quebec  peo- 
ple, who  were  kind  to  the  motherless  girl  and 
"  educated  "  her.  She  married,  from  the  par- 
sonage, Rev.  Joseph  Meacham  of  Coventry, 
Conn.,  and  named  her  eldest  daughter,  "  Eu- 
nice." 

Eleazar,  Stephen,  and  Warham  in  like  man- 
ner perpetuated  the  sacred  name.  As  long  as 
the  father  lived  it  was  uttered  daily  in  family 
worship,  sometimes  with  strong  crying  and 
tears,  always  with  groanings  of  spirit  that  had 
no  articulate  language. 

11 1  have  yet  a  daughter,  ten  years  of  age, 
whose  case  bespeaks  your  compassion,"  wrote 
John  Williams  in  1706  to  Governor  Dudley, 
who  had  "  readily  lent  his  own  son,  Mr.  Wil- 
liam Dudley,  to  undergo  the  hazards  and 
hardships  of  a  tedious  voyage  that  this  affair  " 
— the  release  of  the  captives — "might  be 
transacted  with  success." 

In  this  diary  he  unwittingly  forecasts  her 
future. 

"  My  youngest  daughter,  aged  seven  years, 

was  carried  all  the  journey  and  looked  after 

with  a  great  deal  of  tenderness." 
27 


4i 8       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

From  the  outset  of  her  new  life,  she  was 
virtually  adopted  by  her  captors.  When  Col- 
onel Stoddard  went  to  Canada  in  1707,  to 
negotiate  terms  for  the  release  of  English 
prisoners,  he  "  was  successful  in  redeeming 
many  of  his  fellow  citizens,  but  he  could  not 
obtain  Eunice,  the  daughter  of  Mr.  Williams." 

In  1 71 1,  a  futile  attempt  was  made  by  an 
Indian  woman  of  the  Abenakis  tribe  to  ex- 
change Eunice  Williams  for  her  two  children, 
who  had  been  taken  prisoners  by  the  English. 

"  The  business  is  very  hard,  because  the 
girl  belongs  to  Indians  of  another  sort,  and  the 
master  is  now  in  Albany,"  says  a  letter  of  that 
date. 

Colonel  John  Schuyler  of  Albany  went  to 
Montreal  in  person,  April  15,  1713,  upon  a 
special  mission  to  secure  the  return  of  the 
daughter  of  Rev.  John  Williams,  "  now  captive 
amongst  the  Indians  at  the  fort  of  Caghono- 
waga  in  Canada.  He  was  to  insist  upon  her 
return,  and  persuade  her  to  go  to  her  father 
and  her  native  country,  it  being  upon  the  in- 
stant and  urgent  desire  of  her  father,  now 
minister  at  Deerfield  in  New  England." 

The  Governor  of  Canada  granted  the  envoy 
"  all  the  encouragement  I   could  imagine  for 


The  "  Parson  Williams"  House     4*9 

her  to  go  home  ;  he  also  permitted  me  to  go 
to  her  at  the  fort.  Moreover,  he  said  that, 
with  all  his  heart  he  would  give  a  hundred 
crowns  out  of  his  own  pocket  if  that  she  might 
be  persuaded  to  go  to  her  native  country." 

The  Governor  was  the  Marquis  de  Vaudreuil, 
and  had  interested  himself  in  the  request  of 
the  Abenakis  mother.  He  was,  doubtless, 
weary  of  the  subject  and  anxious  to  avoid  pos- 
sible future  complications  and  importunities. 

With  a  glad  heart  the  emissary  hastened  to 
the  fort  of  Caghonowaga  (Caughnawaga)  es- 
corted by  one  of  the  king's  officers  and  two 
interpreters,  one  who  could  speak  French,  the 
other  an  Indian. 

Eunice  was  now  seventeen  and  the  wife  of 
an  Indian.  His  name  is  positively  stated  by 
one  historian  to  have  been  De  Rogers.  That 
would  bespeak  him  a  half-breed.  Others  call 
him  Amrusus,  "  which  name  is  now  believed  to 
be  an  Indian  corruption  of  Ambroise."  Here, 
again,  we  have  an  intimation  of  French  line- 
age. Eunice  was  rebaptized  by  a  Jesuit  priest 
as  "  Margaret." 

Her  husband  accompanied  and  remained 
with  her  throughout  the  interview  with  John 
Schuyler.     She  wore    the  dress    of    a    squaw 


420       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

and  bore  herself  with  sullen  reserve  which 
defied  all  efforts  to  break  it  down.  She  did 
not  understand  English  when  Colonel  Schuyler 
spoke  to  her  in  that  tongue,  and  was  obdur- 
ately dumb  to  all  questions  put  to  her  in 
French  and  in  the  Indian  dialect.  The  priest, 
in  whose  house  the  painful  interview  took 
place,  was  appealed  to  by  the  envoy,  and 
joined  his  efforts  to  the  Englishman's — "  but 
she  continued  unpersuadable." 

"  I  promised,  upon  my  word  of  honor,  if  she  would 
go  only  to  see  her  father  I  would  convey  her  to  New 
England,  and  give  her  assurance  of  liberty  to  return 
if  she  pleased.  After  this,  my  earnest  request  and 
fair  offer  upon  long  solicitation,  two  Indian  words, 
translated  '  Maybe  not'  were  all  we  could  get  from  her 
in  two  hours'  time." 

As  we  have  read  in  the  chapter  upon  The 
Schuyler  House,  John — otherwise  Johannes 
— Schuyler,  had  "  great  influence  with  the 
Indians,"  acquired  by  many  years  of  warring, 
trading,  and  treating  with  them.  Although  a 
man  of  war  from  his  youth  up,  he  had  a  tender 
heart,  and  it  was  fully  enlisted  on  the  side 
of  the  sorrowing  father  and  the  expectant 
brothers  and  sister.      His  emotion  was  so  ap- 


The  "  Parson  Williams"  House     421 

parent  that  Eunice's  husband,  hitherto  a  quiet 
spectator  of  the  scene,  interposed  to  end  it : 

"  Seeing  that  I  was  so  much  concerned  about  her,  he 
replied  that  had  her  father  not  married  again,  she  would 
have  gone  to  see  him  long  ere  this,  but  gave  no  other 
reason,  and  the  time  growing  late  and  I  being  very 
sorrowful  that  I  could  not  prevail  upon  her,  I  took  her 
by  the  hand,  and  left  her  in  the  priest's  house." 

There  is  evidence  of  the  continued  interest 
of  Colonel  Schuyler  in  the  wayward  daughter 
in  the  account  written  by  a  granddaughter  of 
Rev.  Stephen  Williams  of  a  visit  made  by  her 
great-aunt  Eunice  to  Longmeadow  in  1 740. 
"  The  affair,"  she  says,  "was  negotiated 
entirely  by  their  friends,  the  Schuylers." 
Her  brothers  Eleazar  and  Stephen,  with  her 
sister's  husband,  Rev.  Joseph  Meacham,  met 
Eunice  and  her  husband  in  Albany  and  had 
hard  work  to  induce  her  to  come  on  to  Long- 
meadow.  They  spent  several  days  with  their 
relatives  and  left  with  the  promise  of  another 
visit.  The  delayed  fulfilment  of  the  pledge 
is  chronicled  in  Rev.  Stephen  Williams's 
diary  of  June  and  July,  1761. 

"  June  30.  This  day  my  sister  Eunice,  her  husband, 
her  daughter  Katharine,  and  others,  came  hither  from 
Canada." 


422       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

"  Sister  Williams  of  Deerfield  "  (that  would 
be  the  wife  of  his  half-brother  Elijah,  who  now 
owned  the  homestead)  sent  over  an  interpreter 
in  advance  of  the  arrival ;  his  daughters  Eunice 
and  Martha  were  with  their  father  upon  "  ye 
joyfull,  sorrowfull  occasion,"  and  other  rela- 
tives and  friends  gathered  to  greet  the  exile 
and  to  entreat  her  to  remain  with  them.  She 
passed  one  Sunday  in  Deerfield  during  this 
visit,  and  was  coaxed  into  dressing  in  the 
English  fashion,  and  attending  service  in  her 
father's  old  church.  The  constraint  and  sense 
of  strangeness  of  her  new  costume  became 
intolerable  by  the  time  prayers,  hymns,  and 
sermon  were  over.  As  soon  as  she  was  back 
in  "  Sister  Williams's"  house,  she  tore  off  the 
"vile  lendings,"  resumed  her  blanket  and  leg- 
gings and  never  laid  them  aside  again.  While 
she  was  with  Stephen  at  Longmeadow,  the 
Legislature  of  Massachusetts  offered  her  a 
grant  of  land  if  she  would  live  upon  it.  "  She 
positively  refused,"  says  her  grandniece,  "on 
the  ground  that  it  would  endanger  her  soul." 

In  Stephen's  diary  for  July  ioth,  we  have  :  . 

"  This  morning  my  poor  sister  and  company  left  us. 
I  think  I  have  used  ye  best  arguments  I  could  to  per- 
suade her  to  tarry  and  to  come  and  dwell  with  us.     But 


The  u  Parson  Williams"  House     425 

at  present  they  have  been  ineffectual.  Yet  when  I  took 
my  leave  of  my  sister  and  her  daughter  in  the  parlour 
they  both  shed  tears  and  seemed  affected.  Oh  !  that 
God  wd.  touch  their  hearts  and  incline  them  to  turn 
to  their  friends  and  to  embrace  ye  religion  of  Jesus 
Christ  !  " 

And  she,,  with  a  heart  wrung  by  early  mem- 
ories and  yearning  for  companionship  with 
those  of  her  own  blood,  went  back  to  dwell  in 
the  wilds  of  Canada  lest  she  should  lose  her 
soul ! 

She  paid  two  other  visits  to  Massachusetts 
before  her  death  which  occurred  at  the  age  of 
ninety,  and  her  children  and  grandchildren 
made  repeated  pilgrimages  to  Deerfield  to 
keep  in  touch  with  their  kinspeople  there. 
The  fate  that  had  severed  her  and  her  fortunes 
so  widely  from  the  trim  respectability  of  New 
England  village-life  i-nfused  other  and  yet 
more  romantic  elements  into  the  lives  of  her 
offspring.  Sarah,  her  eldest  daughter,  mar- 
ried the  son  of  the  Bishop  of  Chester,  whose 
name,  by  an  odd  coincidence,  was  Williams. 
The  young  Englishman  was  a  surgeon  on 
board  of  a  man-of-war  which  was  captured  by 
the  French  in  the  war  of  1755-60,  and  was 
taken  a  prisoner  to  Canada.      His  skill  as  a 


426      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

physician,  his  botanical  lore,  and  his  passion 
for  adventures  in  field  and  in  forest,  made 
him  popular  among  the  Indians.  In  one  of 
the  excursions  made  in  their  company  he 
visited  Caughnawaga  and  became  so  enamored 
of  the  beautiful  half-breed,  Sarah,  as  to  accede 
to  the  condition  upon  which  her  parents  gave 
consent  to  the  marriage,  viz.,  that  he  should 
live  in  Canada. 

Their  only  son,  Thomas  Williams,  married 
a  French  woman.  Among  the  children  of  this 
marriage  was  Eleazar  Williams,  born  about 
1 790,  whom  many  persist  to  this  day  in  be- 
living  to  have  been  the  lost  Louis  XVII  of 
France.  He  was  educated  in  "the  States" 
and  took  orders  in  the  Episcopal  Church, 
choosing  as  his  cure  of  souls  a  settlement 
of  Indians  at  Green  Bay,  Wisconsin.  His 
relative  and  biographer,  the  compiler  of  the 
Williams  Genealogy,  adds, 

"  He  married  Miss  Mary  Hobart  Jourdan,  a  distant 
relative  of  the  King  of  France  "—(Louis  Philippe) 
"  from  whom  he  had  been  honored  with  several  splendid 
gifts  and  honors,  among  the  rest  a  golden  cross  and 
star.  He  has  a  son  John  who  is  now  (1846)  on  a  visit 
to  the  king  of  France  at  his  request." 

Those  who  met  and  knew  the  faithful  mis- 


The  "Parson  Williams"  House     429 

sionary, — who  may  have  owed  his  French 
physiognomy  and  natural  grace  of  manner  to 
his  mother,  Thomas  Williams's  wife, — describe 
him  as  a  serious-eyed,  earnest  Christian  gentle- 
man, who  seldom  spoke  of  the  wild  tales  of  his 
royal  parentage  and  his  right  to  a  throne,  yet 
who  believed  thoroughly  and  honestly  in  them 
all.  This  conviction  and  the  expression  of  it 
on  the  part  of  such  a  man,  whose  parents  as- 
suredly could  have  rent  the  illusion  by  a  word, 
is  perhaps  the  most  astonishing  circumstance 
in  all  the  marvellous  tissue  of  tragedy,  adven- 
ture, achievement,  and  heroism  that  envelops 
and  dignifies  the  homely  dwelling  standing 
now  a  little  apart  from  the  shaded  village 
street. 

It  was  removed  about  eighty  feet  back  on 
its  own  grounds  when  the  Deerfield  Academy 
was  erected,  a  building  that  now  occupies  the 
site  of  the  parsonage.  The  Williams  house 
itself  has  suffered  many  changes,  yet  certain 
features  are  unaltered.  There  are  broad  win- 
dow-seats where  the  only  daughter  left  to  the 
stricken  father  may  have  sat  in  the  twilight 
with  her  Reverend  lover,  and  Eunice,  in  her 
Indian  dress,  perhaps  dreamed  on  moonlight 
evenings  of  the  mother  left  dead  on  the  bloody 


43°       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

snow,  and  tried  to  forgive  her  father  in  his 
grave  for  the  second  marriage  she  had  resented 
as  an  insult  to  the  memory  of  the  true  and 
tender  "  consort." 

As  we  stroll  under  the  elms  that  line  the 
dear,  dreamy  old  street,  I  am  told  that  the 
leading  man  to-day  in  the  Indian  settlement 
of  Caughnawaga,  is  Chief  Joseph  Williams,  a 
direct  descendant  of  Eunice,  and  a  far-off  kins- 
man of  the  sweet  and  stately  woman  whose 
summer-rest  is  taken  among  her  own  people. 
She  tells  me  of  her  visit  to  the  village  with  the 
impossible  name,  some  years  back,  and  how 
the  Crusade  of  the  Bell  is  held  to  be  history, 
not  legend,  by  the  great-great-grandchildren  of 
those  who  burned  the  town  and  recovered  their 
rightful  property,  and  how  the  blood-bought 
trophy  still  hangs  in  the  belfry  of  the  Canadian 
church. 

A  monument  has  been  erected  lately  upon 
the  spot  where  Eunice  Williams  was  slain,  over 
on  the  other  side  of  Green  River,  and  in  the 
museum  is  the  old  nail-studded  door  with  the 
hole  hacked  in  it  through  which  Mrs.  Sheldon 
was  shot. 

Deerfield  has  been  spoken  of  as  the  "sleep- 


The  "  Parson  Williams"  House    431 

iest  town  in  all  New  England."  We  do  not 
grudge  her  a  century  or  two  of  repose  after  the 
unrest  of  her  infancy,  the  anguish  of  her 
youth. 


gtsoft 


XVIII 


VARINA.     THE  HOME  OF  POCAHONTAS  x 

JOHN  SMITH,  captain,  knight,  and  ex- 
plorer, in  pushing  his  canoe  through  the 
tortuous  creeks  of  the  Chickahominy  swamp, 
fell  into  an  ambush  of 
three  hundred  Indians. 
After  a  desperate  defence 
he  was  taken  prisoner  by 
Opechancanough,and  car- 
ried, for  trial  for  killing 
two  aborigines,  before  the 
5*1^^  Emperor  Powhatan,  Ope- 
chancanough  s  mightier 
brother. 

At  each  stopping-place  in  the  journey  tow- 
ard the  imperial  residence  at  Werowocomoco 
— "  the  chief  place  of  council  " — Smith  nar- 
rates with  grim  humor,  that  he  "  expected  to 
be  executed   at  some  one  of  the  fires  he  saw 

432 


JOHN  SMITH'S  COAT-OF-ARMS 


Varina  433 

blazing  all  about  them  in  the  woods.  .  .  . 
So  fat  they  fed  mee  that  I  much  doubted  they 
intended  to  have  sacrificed  mee  to  a  superior 
power  they  worship." 

He  was  still  under  thirty  years  of  age,  well- 
built,  and  martial  in  carriage.  The  full  mus- 
tache outlined  a  firm  mouth  ;  his  mien  was 
frank,  his  eyes  were  fearless  and  pleasant. 
Stories  of  his  prowess  and  of  his  arts  of  pleas- 
ing had  preceded  him. 

"  Here  "  (at  Werowocomoco)  "  two  hundred  grim 
courtiers  stood  wondering  at  him  as  he  had  beene  a 
monster  ;  till  Powhatan  and  his  traine  had  put  them- 
selves in  their  greatest  braveries.  Before  a  fire,  upon  a 
seat  like  a  bedstead,  he  sat  covered  with  a  great  robe, 
made  of  Rarowcun "  (raccoon)  "  skinnes  and  all  the 
tayles  hanging  by.  On  either  hand  did  sit  a  young  wench 
of  sixteen  or  eighteen  yeares,  and  along  on  each  side  the 
house  two  rowes  of  men,  and  behind  them  as  many 
women,  with  all  their  heads  and  shoulders  painted  red, 
many  of  their  heads  bedecked  with  the  white  downe  of 
birds  ;  but  everyone  with  something  ;  and  a  great  chaine 
of  white  beads  about  their  necks. 

"  At  his  "  (Smith's)  "  entrance  before  the  King  all  the 
people  gave  a  great  shout.  The  Queene  of  Appamatuck 
was  appointed  to  bring  him  water  to  wash  his  hands, 
and  another  brought  him  a  bunch  of  feathers  instead  of 
a  Towell  to  dry  them.  Having  feasted  him  after  their 
best  barbarous  manner  they  could,  a  long  consultation 


434      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

was  held,  but  the  conclusion  was,  two  great  stones  were 
brought  before  Powhatan,  then,  as  many  as  could,  layd 
hands  on  him,  dragged  him  to  them,  and  thereon  laid 
his  head,  and  being  ready  with  their  clubs  to  beate  out 
his  brains,  Pocahontas,  the  King's  dearest  daughter, 
when  no  entreaty  could  prevaile,  got  his  head  in  her 
arms,  and  laid  her  own  upon  his  to  save  him  from  death, 
whereat  the  Emperor  was  contented  he  should  live  to 
make  him  hatchets  and  her  bells,  beads,  and  copper. 
For  they  thought  him  as  well  of  all  occupations  as  them- 
selves. For  the  King  himselfe  will  make  his  own  robes, 
shooes,  bowes,  arrowes,  pots  ;  plant,  hunt,  or  doe  any- 
thing so  well  as  the  rest." 

11  When  no  entreaty  could  prevaile,"  implies 
a  prologue  almost  as  dramatic  as  the  act  itself. 
Powhatan  had  divers  wives,  twenty  sons,  and 
ten  daughters.  Whether  by  beauty  and 
sprightliness,  or  by  force  of  the  dauntless  spirit 
that  bespoke  her,  in  every  inch  of  her  slight 
body,  his  child  in  temper  and  in  will,  Pocahon- 
tas had  a  hold  upon  his  savage  nature  that  no 
other  creature  ever  gained.  In  a  captivity 
that  had  many  opportunities  of  familiar  dis- 
course with  those  who  kept  him,  the  knightly 
soldier  had  made  her  his  friend.  She  had 
pleaded  for  him  before  the  hour  set  for  the 
trial.  It  was  not  the  sudden  caprice  of  a 
spoiled  child  that    had  cast  her  between  the 


Varina  435 

club  and  the  head  embraced  in  her  arms. 
Still  less  was  it — as  a  legion  of  romanticists 
have  insinuated  or  asserted — a  transport  of 
self-devotion  of  like  strain  with  that  which,  in 
the  heart  of  a  Tartar  princess  had,  five  years 
before,  ameliorated  Smith's  slavery  in  "  the 
countrey  of  Tartaria."  The  Indian  girl  was 
but  twelve  years  old  when  she  thus  recklessly 
risked  her  life.  That  she  was  regarded  as  a 
child  by  her  grimly  indulgent  parent  is  patent 
from  the  union  of  Smith's  office  as  armorer  to 
his  majesty  with  that  of  trinket-maker  to  the 
little  princess. 

For  a  month — perhaps  six  weeks — Smith 
lived  in  constant  association  with  his  despotic 
host,  and  the  little  brunette  whom  he  was 
ordered  to  amuse.  The  influence  of  this  pe- 
riod, and  the  subsequent  intimacy  to  which  it 
led,  upon  her  character  and  career  can  hardly 
be  exaggerated.  She  had  inherited,  with  her 
father's  imperiousness,  the  intellect  that  made 
him  Emperor,  while  his  brothers  were  but 
kings,  and  Werowocomoco  the  place  to  which 
the  tribes  came  up  for  judgment.  The  sup- 
posed artificer  selected  to  fashion  tinkling  or- 
naments to  please  the  fancy  of  the  "salvage" 
maiden,  was  soldier,  traveller,   dramatist,  his- 


436       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

torian,  and  diplomatist.  From  the  aborigines 
of  the  Virginia,  whose  interests  he  calls  "  my 
wife,  my  children,  my  hawks,  hounds,  my  cards, 
my  dice,  in  totall,  my  best  content,"  he  learned 
their  dialects,  social,  warlike,  and  religious  cus- 
toms. In  acquiring  her  mother-tongue,  he 
taught  his  to  Pocahontas. 

One  of  his  note-books  contains  a  glossary 
of  Indian  words  and  phrases,  with  this  super- 
scription :  "  Because  many  doe  desire  to  know 
the  manner  of  their"  (the  Indians)  "  language, 
I  have  inserted  these  few  words."  The  long- 
est sentence  has,  for  a  sensitive  imagination,  a 
story  between  the  lines.  Being  translated,  it 
means,  "  Bid  Pocahontas  bring  hither  two 
little  baskets,  and  I  will  give  her  white  beads 
to  make  her  a  Chaine." 

The  touch  of  affectionate  playfulness  is 
exquisite  in  connection  with  the  circumstances 
under  which  it  is  likely  the  phrase  was  con- 
structed. If  he  were  in  love  with  his  benefac- 
tress, it  was  as  a  bearded  man  of  the  world, 
whose  trade  was  war,  might  love  a  winsome 
plaything.  It  is  far  more  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  she  drew  from  him  the  earliest 
aspirations  that  led  to  her  conversion  to  Chris- 
tianity.    "  What,"  he  asks  of  his  fellow-adven- 


CAPTAIN  JOHN  SMITH, 


Varina  439 

turers  in  the  New  World,  "  can  a  man  with 
faith  in  religion  do  more  agreeable  to  God 
than  to  seek  to  convert  these  poor  savages  to 
Christ  and  humanity  ?  " 

He  was  the  model,  without  fear  and  without 
reproach,  upon  which  the  child,  intelligent 
beyond  her  years,  meeting  him  at  the  most  im- 
pressionable period  of  her  life,  fashioned  her 
ideas  of  his  people.  They  were  to  her  as 
gods.  Under  her  tutor,  heart,  mind,  and  am- 
bition took  on  a  new  complexion. 

There  is  no  other  reasonable  explanation  of 
the  loyalty  to  the  English  colonists  that  became 
a  passion  with  her,  earning  for  her  the  name  of 
"the  dear  and  blessed  Pocahontas." 

Smith's  uneasiness  in  his  honorable  captivity, 
and  his  efforts  to  return  to  the  settlement, 
should  exonerate  him  from  the  suspicion  of 
any  entanglement  of  the  affections  in  his  pres- 
ent abode.  Powhatan  offered  him  a  princi- 
pality if  he  would  cast  in  his  fortunes  with  the 
tribe.  Smith's  reply  was  to  entreat  a  safe 
conduct  to  Jamestown.  In  his  General  His- 
tory, he  recapitulates  what  he  had  written 
to  the  queen-consort  in  1616,  namely,  that 
Pocahontas  "  not  only  hazarded  the  beating 
out  of   her  owne  brains  to   save  mine,  but  so 


44-o      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

prevailed  with  her  father  that  I  was  safely 
conducted  to  Jamestown."  As  the  adopted 
son  of  the  mightiest  chieftain  upon  the  river 
that  had  formerly  borne  his  name,  Smith  could 
make  her  his  wife.  If  he  rejoined  his  English 
comrades,  the  chances  were  all  against  his 
wedding  an  illiterate  pagan.  She  was  shrewd, 
naturally  self-willed,  and  of  strong  affections. 
Yet,  through  her  intercession,  Smith  was 
returned  to  his  people. 

Starvation  was  staring  the  settlers  in  the 
face  when,  one  winter  day,  a  train  of  red  men 
emerged  from  the  forest  and  approached  the 
fort.  A  little  in  advance  of  the  "  Indian  file" 
was  a  lithe  figure,  wrapped  in  a  robe  of  doe- 
skin, lined  and  edged  with  pigeon-down.  As 
a  king's  daughter,  she  wore  a  white  heron's 
feather  in  her  black  hair  ;  wrists  and  ankles 
were  banded  with  coral.  A  queen  in  minia- 
ture, she  came  with  gifts  of  corn  and  game,  in 
quantities  that  quieted  the  rising  panic. 
11  Every  once  in  four  or  five  days,"  the  "  wild 
train  "  thus  laden,  visited  the  settlement  "  un- 
till  the  peril  of  famine  was  past."  Under 
Smith's  presidency,  Jamestown  became  a 
village  of  nearly  five  hundred  inhabitants,  with 
twenty-four  cannon    and    abundant    store    of 


Varina  441 

muskets.  A  church  took  the  place  of  the  log- 
hut  in  which  divine  service  had  been  held  ; 
boys  and  girls  frolicked  in  the  street,  without 
fear  of  tomahawk  or  war-whoop.  A  welcome 
and  frequent  playfellow  of  these  was  "  a  well- 
featured  young  girle,"  fleet  of  foot,  black- 
eyed  and  brown-skinned. 

"  Jamestown,  with  her  wild  train,  she  as  fre- 
quently visited  as  her  father's  habitation." 

The  wily  old  Emperor  did  not  scruple  to 
play  upon  the  president's  gratitude  to  his 
youthful  preserver,  when  it  suited  his  policy. 
Some  depredations  had  been  committed  upon 
the  settlers,  Powhatan  presuming  upon  the 
fact  stated  by  a  malcontent,  that  "  the  com- 
mand from  England  was  strait  not  to  offend 
them" — the  "salvages."  Smith,  aroused  by 
Indian  insolence,  seized  the  evildoers,  brought 
them  to  Jamestown,  and  threatened  to  shoot 
them.  Whereupon  Powhatan  sent,  first,  am 
bassadors,  then  "his  dearest  daughter  Po- 
cahontas, with  assurances  of  his  love  forever." 
In  full  understanding  of  the  value  of  such 
pledges,  Smith  delivered  the  prisoners  to  Po- 
cahontas, "  for  whose  sake  only,  he  fayned  to 
save  their  lives."  Strachys  speaks  of  her  in 
connection  with  this  transaction  as  "  a  child  of 


442       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

tenne  yeares."  This  would  be  in  the  summer 
or  early  autumn  of  1608,  when  she  was  about 
thirteen. 

Later,  in  the  same  year,  Powhatan  was 
crowned  by  order  of  James  I.  Out  of  "  com- 
plemental  courtesy,"  the  emperor  of  "  Atta- 
nougeskomouch,  ah  Virginia,"  submitted  to  a 
coronation  under  the  style  of  "  Powhatan  I.," 
and  became  a  nominal  vassal  of  the  English 
crown.  He  would  not,  however,  go  to  James- 
town to  receive  diadem  and  vestments. 

The  old  warrior  was  growing  surly  as  Well 
as  "  sour."  He  would  be  put  through  the 
ceremony  at  his  own  chief  place  of  council,  or 
go  uncrowned. 

On  the  evening  preceding  the  coronation 
the  English  kindled  their  watch-fire  in  an  open 
field,  near  to  Werowocomoco,  and  Smith  was 
sitting  soberly  before  it  upon  a  mat,  when  such 
unearthly  and  "  hydeous  noise  and  shreeking" 
issued  from  the  woods  as  drove  the  men  to 
arms,  and  to  the  arrest  of  two  or  three  old  In- 
dians who  were  loitering  near,  with  the  inten- 
tion of  holding  them  as  hostages.  Forthwith 
there  elided  out  of  the  forest  the  familiar  and 
beloved  form  of  Pocahontas,  offering  herself 
as   surety   for  the    peaceable    designs  of    her 


Varina  443 

confederates — "  willing  him  to  kill  her  if  any 
hurt  was  intended." 

The  "  anticke  "  that  followed  was  a  "  Mas- 
carado  "  so  uncouth  that  we  are  glad  the  nar- 
ration does  not  intimate  her  active  participation 
therein,  albeit  it  is  spoken  of  as  an  entertain- 
ment contrived  by  "  Pocahontas  and  her 
women."  That  which  seemed  grotesque  and 
even  "  infernall  "  to  the  phlegmatic  English- 
man who  tells  the  tale,  was  unquestionably  a 
solemn  pageant  in  the  eyes  of  the  princess  and 
her  aids,  and  arranged  with  infinite  pains  to  do 
honor  to  the  guests. 

Whatever  may  have  been  Powhatan's  senti- 
ments as  to  the  pompous  farce  in  which  he 
bore  reluctant  part,  his  daughter  apparently 
anticipated  his  coronation  as  another  link  ally- 
ing hers  with  the  superior  race  beyond  the 
great  sea. 

In  reality,  the  ceremony  that  lowered  an 
emperor  to  the  rank  of  a  king  and  a  vassal 
was  a  burlesque  throughout.  Pocahontas, 
gazing  from  the  grinning  faces  of  the  white 
spectators  and  the  uncomprehending  stolidity 
of  her  countrymen  to  her  father's  lowering 
brow,  must  have  suffered  a  sharp  reaction  from 
the  light-hearted  hilarity  of  yesternight 


444       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

What  the  Englishmen  themselves  marvelled 
at  as  her  "  extraordinary  affection  "  for  them, 
was  in  no  wise  weakened  by  the  rapid  change 
in  her  father's  attitude  toward  the  invaders. 
Within  three  months  he  invited  Smith  to  visit 
him,  and  when  he  appeared  at  Werowocomoco 
with  eighteen  attendants,  received  him  so  cav- 
alierly that  the  astute  soldier  felt  himself  to  be 
upon  ground  as  treacherous  as  the  ice  through 
which  he  "had  broken  from  the  boats  to  the 
shore. 

"  Seeing  this  Salvage  but  trifle  the  time  to 
cut  his  throat,"  he  sent  word  to  the  men  left 
with  the  boat  to  land.  As  the  Indians  closed 
about  him,  "  with  his  pistoll,  sword,  and  target 
hee  made  such  a  passage  among  the  naked 
Devils  that  at  his  first  shoot "  they  fled  pre- 
cipitately in  all  directions. 

The  little  band  of  white  men  encamped 
upon  the  frozen  shore  and  were  preparing 
their  evening  meal,  when  a  visitor  announced 
herself. 

I  cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  borrow 
again,  and  liberally,  from  the  time-stained 
story  reprinted  from  the  London  edition  of 
1629. 

11  Pocahontas,  his"  (Powhatan's)  "dearest  Jewell  and 


Varina  445 

daughter,  in  that  darke  night  came  through  the  irksome 
woods,  and  told  our  Captaine  great  cheare  should  be 
sent  us  by-and-by  ;  but  Powhatan,  and  all  the  power  he 
coulde  make,  would  after  come  to  kill  us  all,  if  they  that 
brought  it  could  not  kill  us  with  our  owne  weapons  when 
wee  were  at  supper.  Therefore,  if  we  would  live,  she 
wished  us  presently  to  be  gone.  Such  things  as  she  de- 
lighted in,  he  would  have  given  her  ;  but  with  the  teares 
running  downe  her  cheekes,  she  said  she  durst  not  be 
seene  to  have  any  ;  for  if  Powhatan  should  know  it,  she 
were  but  dead.  And  soe  she  ran  away  by  herselfe  as 
she  came." 

We  linger  over  the  picture  dashed  upon  the 
canvas  by  a  hand  untaught  in  artistic  effects, 
until  our  own  eyes  are  "  watered."  The  child 
— not  yet  fourteen  years  old — a  baby  in  sim- 
plicity, but  a  woman  in  depth  of  devotion  to 
her  friends  ;  brave  to  recklessness,  holding 
her  life  as  nothing  by  comparison  with  her 
loyalty,  but  breaking  into  childlike  weeping 
when  she  tried  to  speak  of  the  change  in  him 
whose  '  ■  dearest  Jewell  "  she  had  been  ;— roman- 
tic invention  pales  by  the  side  of  this  ever-true 
relation  of  love  and  fidelity. 

All  came  to  pass  as  she  had  warned  Smith. 
His  coolness  and  courage  prevented  the  catas- 
trophe planned  by  the  cunning  chieftain  ;  he 
and  his  men  reached  Jamestown  in  safety,  and 


44°       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

Our  Lady  of  the  James  appeared  no  more  in 
the  streets  or  houses  of  the  village  during  the 
space  of  two  years.  We  hear  of  no  other  in- 
terview between  her  and  the  hero  of  her  child- 
ish imaginings  until  the  meeting  between  them 
in  an  English  drawing-room  seven  years  later. 
Not  many  months  after  Smith's  visit  to 
Powhatan,  the  former  met  with  the  accident 
that  obliged  him  to  return  to  England  for  sur- 
gical aid.  A  contemporary  thus  refutes  the 
scandal  that  preceded  Smith  to  London,  to 
the  purport  that  he  "  would  fain  have  made 
himself  a  king  by  marrying  Pocahontas,  Pow- 
hatan's daughter." 

"  Very  oft  she  came  to  our  fort  with  what  she  could 
get  for  Captain  Smith,  that  ever  loved  and  used  all  the 
country  well,  and  she  so  well  requited  it  that  when  her 
father  intended  to  have  surprised  him,  she  by  stealth,  in 
the  dark  night,  came  through  the  wild  woods  and  told 
him  of  it.     If  he  would,  he  might  have  married  her." 

There  were  reasons  many  and  stringent  for 
her  disappearance  from  the  theatre  of  colonial 
history. 

"  No  sooner  had  the  salvages  understood 
that  Smith  was  gone,  but  they  all  revolted  and 
did  spoil  and  murther  all  they  encountered." 

Ratcliffe,  Smith's  successor,  visited  Powha- 


Varina  447 

tan  with  "thirtie  others  as  careless  as  himself," 
and  was  killed  with  all  his  party  except  one 
man,  who  escaped,  and  a  boy,  whose  life 
Pocahontas  saved.  "  This  boy  lived  many 
years  after  by  her  means  among  the  Pata- 
womekes  "  (Potomacs). 

Jamestown  was  rehabilitated  by  Lord  De 
la  Warr,  he  building  upon  the  foundations 
laid  by  Smith's  travail  of  soul  and  body.  De 
la  Warr  was  succeeded  by  Sir  Thomas  Dale — 
"  a  man  of  great  knowledge  in  divinity,  and 
of  good  conscience  in  all  things." 

The  "  Nonparella  of  Virginia"  during  these 
changes,  had  left  her  father's  house,  and  gone 
to  sojourn  with  friends  of  hers  in  the  Potomac 
tribe.  Coupling  the  circumstance  with  the 
adoption  of  the  lad  whose  life  she  had  saved 
by  the  same  friendly  people,  we  attach  much 
significance  to  the  remark  that  she  "  thought 
herself  unknowne  "  in  that  region.  She  was, 
apparently,  in  refuge,  and,  as  she  supposed, 
incognita.  The  secret  of  her  nocturnal  ex- 
pedition had  been  betrayed  to  her  father. 
That  he  wreaked  his  wrath  upon  her  until 
existence  with  him  became  insupportable  is 
wellnigh  certain.  She  had  found  comparative 
peace   in  an  asylum   in  the  wigwam   of   one 


448      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

Japazaws,  "  an  old  acquaintance  of  Captain 
Smith's,  and  exceedingly  friendly  to  the 
English." 

Captain  Samuel  Argall,  a  semi-privateers- 
man,  was  sent  up  the  Potomac  for  corn  by  the 
Governor  of  Virginia,  and,  upon  the  principle 
of  natural  selection,  "  entered  into  a  great 
acquaintance  with  Japazaws."  Shortly  before 
Argall  left  Jamestown  the  Indians  made  a  raid 
upon  the  environs  of  the  fort,  carrying  off, 
not  only  "  swords,  peeces,  tooles,  &c,"  but 
several  men.  In  the  course  of  a  friendly 
gossip  with  Japazaws,  Argall  learned  that  a 
daughter  of  the  truculent  emperor — Poca- 
hontas, or  Matoax  by  name — was  the  guest 
of  the  Indian's  squaw. 

Negotiations  ensued,  in  which  Indian  prin- 
ples  of  loyalty  to  friends,  protection  of  the  help- 
less, and  hospitality  to  the  innocent  stranger 
within  his  lodge  were  weighed  against  a  burn- 
ished copper  kettle,  flashed  by  Argall  before 
the  gloating  eyes  of  the  noble  Potomac. 

Japazaws  went  home  and  beat  his  wife  until 
she  agreed  to  feign  an  intense  desire  to  go  on 
board  this  particular  English  vessel.  Her 
lord  consented  presently  to  let  her  visit  it 
provided  Pocahontas  would  go  with  her. 


Varina  449 

The  coarse  plot  was  coarsely  and  cruelly 
carried  out. 

Master  Hamor's  relation  of  "  the  surrender 
of  the  government  to  Sir  Thomas  Dale  who 
arrived  in  Virginia  the  tenth  of  May,  1611," 
goes  coolly,  and  in  fact,  zestfully,  into  the 
details  of  the  righteous  treachery,  the  while 
he  feigns  to  pity  the  victim  : 

"And  thus  they  betrayed  the  poor,  innocent  Poca- 
hontas aboard,  where  they  were  all  kindly  feasted  in 
the  Cabin.  Japazaws  treading  oft  on  the  Captain's  foot 
to  remember  he  had  done  his  part,  the  Captain,  when 
he  saw  his  time,  persuaded  Pocahontas  to  the  gun-room, 
faining  to  have  some  conference  with  Japazaws,  which 
was  only  that  she  should  not  perceive  he  was  in  any  way 
guilty  of  her  captivity.  So,  sending  for  her  again,  he 
told  her  before  her  friends  she  must  go  with  him,  and 
compound  peace  between  her  country  and  us,  before 
she  ever  should  see  Powhatan,  whereat  the  old  Jew  and 
his  wife  began  to  howl  and  to  cry  as  fast  as  Pocahontas, 
that  upon  the  Captain's  fair  persuasions,  by  degrees 
pacifying  herself,  and  Japazaws  and  his  wife,  with  the 
kettle  and  other  toys,  went  merrily  on  shore,  and  she 
to  Jamestown." 

Sir  Thomas  Dale's  message  to  Powhatan, 
that  "  his  daughter  Pocahontas  he  loved  so 
dearly  must  be  ransomed  with  "  the.  white 
prisoners  and  stolen  property,  "  troubled  him 


45°       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

much,  because  he  loved  both  his  daughter 
and  our  commodities  well."  Nevertheless,  it 
was  three  months  before  he  vouchsafed  any 
reply  whatever,  or  took  any  notice  of  the 
humiliating  intelligence. 

"  Then,  by  the  persuasion  of  the  Council,  he  returned 
seven  of  our  men,  with  each  of  them  an  unservicable 
musket,  and  sent  us  word  that  when  we  would  deliver 
his  daughter  he  would  make  satisfaction  for  all  injuries 
done  us,  and  give  us  five  hundred  bushels  of  corn,  and 
forever  be  friends  with  us.  What  he  sent  were  received 
in  part  of  payment  and  returned  him  this  answer  ;  That 
his  daughter  should  be  well  used,  but  we  could  not  believe 
the  rest  of  our  arms  were  either  lost  or  stolen  from  him, 
and  therefore,  till  he  sent  them,  we  would  keep  his 
daughter. 

"  This  answer,  it  seemed,  much  displeased  him,  for  we 
heard  no  more  from  him  for  a  long  time  after." 

Powhatan  never  regained  the  ground  thus 
lost  in  his  daughter's  affections.  With  pride 
equal  to  his  own,  she  brooded  over  the  public 
insult  offered  her  by  his  silence  and  seeming 
indifference.  She  was  branded  as  an  outcast 
from  her  father's  heart  and  tribe.  But  for  the 
kindness  of  the  aliens  he  hated,  she  would  be 
homeless  and  friendless.  The  bruised  heart, 
still  palpitating  with  the  pain  of  her  Potomac 


Varina  45 1 

host's  treachery,  accounted  as  worthless  by  him 
who  had  given  her  being,  was  tremblingly 
susceptible  to  the  touch  of  sympathy.  The 
people  of  Jamestown  received  her  with  affec- 
tionate hospitality.  The  long-repressed  crav- 
ing for  refinement  and  knowledge  of  the  great, 
beautiful  world — the  echoes  from  which  had 
first  thrilled  her  untaught  soul  during  the 
golden  month  passed  in  her  forest-home  by 
the  superb  stranger  with  the  kind  eyes  and 
winning  smile — was  now  to  be  gratified.  She 
descried  in  her  present  environment  the  realiz- 
ations of  the  ambitions  awakened  by  Smith's 
talk  and  teachings,  and  by  the  conversations 
between  him  and  George  Percy  and  other 
compeers,  to  which  she  had  lent  rapt  atten- 
tion. Her  dream-world  had  become  the  ac- 
tual and  present. 

By  comparison  with  the  village  of  wigwams 
which  was  her  forest-home,  Sir  Thomas  Dale's 
"  new  towne  "  was  a  noble  city,  with  its  "  two 
rowes  of  houses  of  framed  timber,  some  of 
them  two  stories,  and  a  garret  higher,  three 
large  Store-houses  joined  together  in  length," 
and  the  ''strong  impalement"  that  encom- 
passed all. 

"  This  He,  and  much  ground  about  it,  is  much 


452       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

inhabited,  "  the  anonymous  scribe  winds  up 
the  description  by  saying,  complacently. 

The  colonists  made  a  pet  of  the  lonely- 
hearted  hostage.  She  was  nearly  eighteen 
years  old,  with  soft,  wistful  eyes,  delicately 
arched  brows,  a  mouth  at  once  proud  and 
tender,  and  slender  hands  and  feet ;  not  tall, 
but  straight  as  a  birch-sapling,  and  carrying 
herself  with  a  sort  of  imperious  grace  that 
rebuked  familiarity.  Where  she  loved,  she 
was  docile  ;  what  Smith  alludes  to  as  her  "  so 
great  a  spirit,"  leaped  to  arms  when  there  was 
need  of  courage. 

She  went  willingly  enough  with  Sir  Thomas 
Dale,  the  next  spring,  when  he  sailed  up  the 
York  River  to  treat  with,  or  to  fight  Powhatan, 
as  might  seem  best  upon  their  arrival  at  "  his 
chiefe  habitation."  After  a  good  deal  of  tem- 
porizing, a  little  skirmishing,  and  some  rapine 
on  the  part  of  the  visitors,  the  worthy  baronet 
proposed  an  interview  between  the  emperor 
and  his  daughter.  Instead  of  coming  him- 
self to  the  rendezvous,  Powhatan  sent  two  of 
his  sons,  under  flag  of  truce.  The  young 
princes,  comely,  manly  fellows,  embraced  their 
sister  fondly,  rejoiced  in  her  health  and  good 
looks,  and  engaged. to  do  their  best  to  persuade 


Varina  453 

their  father  to  redeem  her.  At  the  mention  of 
his  name  she  demeaned  herself  with  a  hauteur 
it  is  a  pity  the  obstinate  old  heathen  was  not 
there  to  see.  In  bitterly  decisive  words  she  made 
answer  to  her  brothers'  soothing  assurances  : 

"  If  my  father  had  loved  me  he  would  not 
value  me  less  than  old  swords,  pieces,  and  axes  ; 
wherefore  I  will  still  dwell  with  the  English- 
men who  do  love  me." 

The  weaning  was  complete.  To  her  brothers 
she  spoke  privately  of  one  Englishman  whose 
love  differed  in  quality  and  degree  from  the' 
rest.  The  rumor  of  this  was  quickly  bruited 
at  Jamestown  and  in  Werowocomoco,  giving 
profound  satisfaction  in  both  places.  John 
Rolfe,  "  an  honest  gentleman  and  of  good 
behaviour,"  was  fairly  educated,  a  stanch 
churchman  of  a  most  missionary  spirit,  a  well- 
to-do  widower,  and  a  protege  of  Sir  Thomas 
Dale.  If,  after  perusing  the  open  letter  to  his 
patron,  announcing  his  disposition  and  inten- 
tion in  the  matter  of  this  alliance,  the  additional 
epithet  "  a  pious  prig,"  do  not  escape  the 
reader,  it  will  be  because  Jin  de  stick  taste 
prompts  a  stronger.  After  an  introduction 
resonant  with  pietistic  twang,  he  leans  labori- 
ously upon  the  pith  of  his  communication  : 


454       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

"  Let  therefore  this,  my  well-advised  protestations, 
which  here  I  make  before  God  and  my  own  conscience, 
be  a  sufficient  witness  at  the  dreadful  day  of  judgement, 
when  the  secrets  of  all  living  hearts  shall  be  opened,  to 
condemn  me  herein,  if  my  deepest  interest  and  purpose 
be  not  to  strive  with  all  my  powers  of  body  and  minde 
in  the  undertaking  of  so  great  a  matter  for  the  good  of 
this  plantation,  for  the  honor  of  our  countrie,  for  the 
glory  of  God,  for  my  own  salvation  and  for  the  conver- 
ting to  the  true  knowledge  of  God  and  Jesus  Christ,  an 
unbelieving  creature  ;  viz.:  Pokahontas.  To  whom  my 
hartie  and  best  thoughts  are,  and  have  a  longtime  bin  so 
intangled  and  inthralled  in  so  intricate  a  labyrinth  that 
I  was  ever  awearied  to  unvvinde  myself  thereout. 

"  To  you,  therefore  (most  noble  sir),  the  patron  and 
father  of  us  in  this  countrie,  doe  I  utter  the  effects  of 
this  my  settled  and  long-continued  affection  (which  hath 
made  a  mighty  warre  in  my  meditations),  and  here  I  do 
truly  relate  to  what  issue  this  dangerous  combat  is  come 
untoe,  wherein  I  have  not  only  examined  but  thoroughly 
tried  and  pared  my  thoughts,  even  to  the  quicke,  before 
I  could  finde  any  fit,  wholesome,  and  apt  applications  to 
cure  so  dangerous  an  ulcer." 

He  probes  still  further  into  the 

"  grounds  and  principall  agitations  which  thus  provoke 
me  to  be  in  love  with  one  whose  education  has  been 
rude,  her  manners  barbarous,  her  generation  accursed, 
and  so  discrepant  in  all  nurtreture  from  myself  that 
oftentimes,  with  fear  and  trembling,  I  have  ended  my 
private    controversie    with    this  :     '  Surely    these      are 


Varina  455 

wicked  instigations  hatched  by  him  who  seeketh  and 
delighteth  in  man's  destruction.     .     .     .' 

"  Besides  the  many  passions  and  sufferings  which  I 
have  daily,  hourly — yea,  in  my  sleepe  endured,  even 
awaking  me  to  astonishment,  taxing  me  with  remissness 
and  carelessness,  refusing  and  neglecting  to  performe  the 
duties  of  a  good  Christian,  pulling  me  by  the  eare,  and 
crying  t  Why  dost  thou  not  indeavor  to  make  her  a 
Christian  ? ' 

"  And  if  this  be,  as  undoubtedly  this  is,  the  service 
Jesus  Christ  requireth  of  his  best  servant,  wo  unto  him 
that  hath  these  instruments  of  pietie  put  into  his  hands 
and  wilfully  despiseth  to  work  with  them.  Likewise, 
adding  hereunto  her  great  appearance  of  love  to  me,  her 
desire  to  be  taught  and  instructed  in  the  knowledge  of 
God,  her  capablenesse  of  understanding,  her  aptness  and 
willingness  to  receive  anie  good  impression,  and  also  the 
spirituall,  besides  her  own  incitements  thereunto  stirring 
me  up.' 

"  What  shall  I  doe  ?  Shall  I  be  of  so  untoward  a  dis- 
position as  to  refuse  to  leade  the  blind  into  the  right 
way  ?  Shall  I  be  so  unnaturall  as  not  to  give  breade  to 
the  hungrie  ?  " 

To  this  end  had  the  brave,  passionate,  loyal 
dreamer  come  !  We  easily  trace  the  stages  of 
the  match-making.  Rolfe,  commonplace,  sanc- 
timonious, and  shrewd,  on  the  lookout  for  a 
second  wife  and  awake  to  the  advantages  of 
wedding  a  princess,  even  though  she  were  a 
savage  ;  the  unsophisticated    child  of   nature, 


456      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

with  a  head  full  of  overwrought  fancies,  ready 
to  believe  every  English  cavalier  a  demi-god  ; 
the  conscientious  governor,  keen  alike  for 
Christian  neophytes  and  for  a  respite  from 
wars  and  rumors  of  wars,  which  a  union  be- 
tween prominent  representatives  of  the  two 
races  would  bring  about — it  was  a  clever  sum 
in  the  "  rule  of  three  "  and  skilfully  worked 
out  that  winter  of  1612-13. 

So  they  took  her  back  to  Jamestown  and 
baptized  her  at  the  font  in  the  church  built  by 
Lord  de  la  Warr,  christening  her  "  Rebecca." 
Under  this  name  they  wedded  her  to  John 
Rolfe,  one  April  day.  The  tower  still  stands 
in  which  hung  the  two  bells  that  rang  joyfully 
as  bride  and  groom  passed  through  the  narrow 
archway. 

The  marriage  cemented  a  lasting  peace  be- 
tween the  two  nations.  Powhatan,  true  to  his 
purpose  of  holding  no  personal  communication 
with  the  aliens,  never  visited  his  "  jewell," 
either  in  Jamestown  or  at  her  husband's  plan- 
tation of  Varina,  near  Dutch  Gap,  on  James 
River ;  but  he  sent  friendly  messages  from 
time  to  time,  to  "his  daughter  and  unknown 
sonne,"  and  would  know  "  how  they  lived, 
loved,  and  liked." 


TOWER  OF  OLD  CHURCH  AT  JAMESTOWN,   VIRGINIA,  IN  WHICH 
POCAHONTAS  WAS  MARRIED. 


Varina  459 

An  amusing  incident  connected  with  the 
visit  of  Sir  Thomas  Dale's  ambassador,  to 
whom  Powhatan  addressed  this  query,  shoots 
a  side-ray  upon  the  character  of  the  conscien- 
tious and  theological  governor  that  throws  the 
popular  portrait  of  him  out  of  drawing. 

When  Powhatan  had  for  answer  that 

"his  brother,  Sir  Thomas  Dale,  was  well,  and  his  daugh- 
ter so  contented  she  would  not  live  again  with  him,  he 
laughed,  and  demanded  the  cause  of  my  coming.  I 
told  him  my  message  was  private  and  I  was  to  deliver  it 
only  to  himself  and  one  of  my  guides  that  was  acquainted 
with  it.  Instantly  he  commanded  all  out  of  the  house, 
but  only  his  two  Queens  that  always  sit  by  him,  and 
bade  me  speak  on." 

The  messenger  offered,  as  a  preamble  to 
the  motif  of  his  communication,  two  pieces  of 
copper  (household  utensils),  five  strings  of 
white  and  blue  beads,  five  wooden  combs,  ten 
fish-hooks,  a  pair  of  knives  and  the  promise  of 
a  grindstone  if  Powhatan  would  send  for  it, 
all  of  which  pleased  the  monarch  hugely. 

"  But  then  I  told  him  his  brother  Dale,  hearing  of  the 
fame  of  his  youngest  daughter,  desiring,  in  any  case,  he 
would  send  her  by  me  unto  him  in  testimony  of  his  love, 
as  well  as  for  that  he  intended  to  marry  her,  as  the  de- 
sire her  sister  had  to  see  her,  because  being  now  one 


460      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

people  and  he  desirous  for  ever  to  dwell  in  his  country, 
he  conceived  there  could  not  be  a  truer  assurance  of 
peace  and  friendship  than  in  such  a  natural  band  of  an 
united  union." 

Powhatan  broke  in  upon  this  astounding 
proposition  more  than  once,  but  the  English- 
man had  his  say  to  the  end.  "  Presently,  with 
much  gravity," — that  does  credit  to  his  breed- 
ing and  discounts  his  sense  of  humor, — the 
monarch  proceeded  to  say  that,  while  his 
brother's  pledges  of  good-will  "  were  not  so 
ample  as  formerly  he  had  received,"  he  ac- 
cepted them  "with  no  less  thanks."  As  for 
his  daughter,  he  "  had  sold  her  within  these 
few  days,  to  a  great  Werowance,  for  two 
bushels  of  Rawrenoke  "  (whatever  that  might 
be),"  three  days  journey  from  me." 

The  Englishman's  suggestion  that  the  amo- 
rous graybeard  would  give  him  three  times  the 
worth  of  the  mysterious  commodity  in  beads, 
copper,  hatchets,  etc.,  if  he  would  recall  the 
bride — "  the  rather  because  she  was  but  twelve 
years  old  " — was  a  futile  bait.  Powhatan  re- 
minded him  that  Sir  Thomas  Dale  had  a 
pledge  of  his  friendship  in  one  of  his  daughters. 
So  long  as  she  lived,  this  must  suffice.  Should 
she  die,  his  dear  brother  should  have  another 


Varina  461 

in  her  place,  but  he  "  held  it  not  a  brotherly 
part  to  bereave  him  of  his  two  children  at 
once. 

"  I  am  now  old,  and  would  gladly  end  my 
days  in  peace.  If  you  offer  me  injury,  my 
country  is  large  enough  to  go  from  you.  Thus 
much  I  hope  will  satisfy  my  brother.  Now, 
because  you  are  weary,  and  I  sleepy,  we  will 
thus  end," — wound  up  the  queer  interview. 

In  parting  with  the  envoy  he  made  him 
write  down  in  "  a  table-book  "  a  list  of  articles 
he  would  have  his  brother  Dale  send  to  him, 
not  forgetting  the  grindstone,  and  sent  two 
"  Bucks  skins  as  well  dressed  as  could  be  to 
his  sonne  and  daughter."  John  Rolfe's  name 
is  signed  to  an  attestation  of  the  truth  of  the 
narrative  to  this  letter  of  Master  Ralph 
Hamor.  The  interest  he  took  in  the  nesrotia- 
tion  emphasizes  Hamor's  mention  of  Pocahon- 
tas's desire  to  see  her  sister,  and  makes  us 
almost  sorry  for  the  failure  of  Sir  Thomas's 
embassy. 

Another  letter-writer,  under  date  of  "From 
Virginia,  June  18,  1614"  subjoins  to  the 
above  : 

"  I  have  read  the  substance  of  this  relation  in  a  Letter 
written  by  Sir  Thomas  Dale,  another  by  Master  Whita- 


462      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

ker,  and  a  third  by  Master  John  Rolfe  ;  how  careful* 
they  were  to  instruct  her  in  Christianity,  and  how  capa- 
ble and  desirous  shee  was  thereof  ;  after  she  had  been 
some  time  thus  tutored,  shee  never  had  desire  to  goe  to 
her  father,  nor  could  well  endure  the  society  of  her  own 
nation.  The  true  affection  she  constantly  bare  her  hus- 
band was  much,  and  the  strange  apparitions  violent  pas- 
sions he  endured  for  her  love,  as  he  deeply  protested, 
was  wonderfull,  and  she  openly  renounced  her  countrie's 
idolatery,  professed  the  faith  of  Christ,  and  was  bap- 
tized." 

"  She  lives  civilly  and  lovingly  with  her  husband,  and, 
I  trust,  will  increase  in  goodness,  as  the  knowledge  of 
God  increaseth  in  her,"  writes  Sir  Thomas  Dale  in  1616. 
"  She  will  go  to  England  with  me,  and  were  it  but  the 
gaining  of  this  one  soul,  I  will  think  my  time,  toil,  and 
present  time  well  spent." 

With  this  transatlantic  voyage  begins  the 
last  chapter  in  the  mortal  life  of  the  little  mis- 
tress of  the  fair  plantation  of  Varina,  the 
home  to  which  her  English  bridegroom  took 
her.  Even  the  site  of  the  home  in  which  she 
learned  how  to  keep  house  after  the  English 
manner,  and  where  her  "  childe  "  was  born,  is 
unknown.  The  plantation  was  situated  a  few 
miles  below  Richmond  and  the  tobacco  culti- 
vated thereupon  had  a  fine  reputation.  Little 
else  is  known  of  it. 

The    banks   of    the    beautiful     river    from 


463 


POCAHONTAS. 


Varina  465 

Jamestown  to  Henricus  are  consecrate  to  her 
dear  memory. 

She,  her  husband,  and  her  little  son,  "  which 
she  loved  most  dearely,"  in  company  with  the 
conscientious  Governor,  landed  in  Plymouth, 
England,  June  12,  1616.  Six  months  later  we 
hear  of  her  as  the  object  of  much  and  admiring 
interest  in  fashionable  circles.  She  had  been 
presented  at  court,  and  under  the  unremitting 
tutelage  of  "  Master  John  Rolfe  and  his 
friends,"  had  learned  to  "  speake  such  English 
as  might  well  bee  understood,  and  was  become 
very  formall  and  civill,  after  our  English 
manner." 

Alas,  for  the  poor,  transplanted  wild  flower  ! 

The  only  portrait  taken  of  her,  and  given  in 
this  chapter,  bears  the  date  of  that  year.  In 
some  such  garb  as  we  see  in  it  (barring  the 
tall  hat)^  she  might  have  been  arrayed  when 
John  Smith,  now  Admiral  of  New  England, 
and  on  the  eve  of  a  third  voyage  to  America, 
called  to  see  her  at  Branford,  near  London, 
accompanied  by  several  friends.  Smith  ap- 
proached her  respectfully,  accosting  her  as 
M  Lady  Rebecca."  After  one  swift  look,  she 
turned  aside,  and  buried  her  face  in  her  hands, 
"  without    anie    word,"    and,    it    would    seem, 


466       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

withdrew  from  his  immediate  presence.  As  is 
sadly  meet,  we  leave  her  old  friend  to  tell  the 
story. 

"  In  that  humour,  her  husband,  with  divers  others,  we 
all  left  her  two  or  three  houres,  repenting  myselfe  to 
have  writ  she  could  speake  English.  But  not  long  after, 
she  began  to  talke,  and  remembered  mee  well  what  cour- 
tesies she  had  done,  saying  ;  '  You  did  promise  Powhatan 
what  was  yours  should  bee  his,  and  he  the  like  to  you. 
You  called  him  "  Father,"  being  in  his  land  a  stranger, 
and  by  the  same  reason  soe  must  I  doe  you.' 

"  Which,  though  I  would  have  excused,  I  durst  not 
allow  of  that  title,  because  she  was  a  king's  daughter." 

Reading  the  above,  we  call  to  mind  that 
foolish  King  James — forgetful  or  ignorant  of 
Powhatan's  twenty  sons  and  ten  daughters — 
had  expressed  a  fear  lest,  in  the  event  of 
Pocahontas's  succession  to  her  father's  throne, 
the  kingdom  of  Virginia  would  "  be  vested  in 
Mr.  Rolfe's  posterity."  It  behooved  Smith, 
in  recollection  of  the  malicious  reports  relative 
to  his  own  pretensions  in  that  direction,  to 
accentuate  the  distance  between  his  estate  and 
that  of  the  Lady  Rebecca. 

What  a  tumult  of  emotions  must  have  held 
the  young  hostess  dumb  during  the  long  inter- 
val   so    awkward    to    husband    and    guests! 


Varina  467 

Smith,  withheld  by  prudence  and  the  etiquette 
he  understood  better  than  she — despite  Mas- 
ter Rolfe's  drilling — from  approaching  her, 
longed  to  say  to  her  in  her  native  tongue 
what  he  would  not  have  others  hear.  He 
could,  he  felt,  have  won  her  from  her  seem- 
ingly inclement  "  humour,"  if  only  he  had  not 
boasted  of  her  proficiency  in  English.  And 
he  must  again  stab  the  faithful  heart  by  refus- 
ing this  token  of  his  remembrance  of  their 
former  intimacy.  We  can  imagine  that  he  lis- 
tened, embarrassed  with  down-dropt  lids,  as 
she  gained  in  steadfast  composure. 

"  With  a  well-set  countenance,  she  said  :  '  Were  you 
not  afraid  to  come  into  my  father's  Countrie,  and  caused 
feare  in  him  and  all  his  people  (but  me)  and  feare  you 
here  I  should  call  you  "father?"'  (i.e.,  here  you  are 
afraid  to  have  me  call  you  father.)  '  I  tell  you,  then, 
I  will,  and  you  shall  call  me  childe,  and  so  I  will  bee 
forever  and  ever  your  Countrieman.  They  did  tell  us 
alwaies  you  were  dead,  and  I  knew  no  other  till  I  came 
to  Plimoth  ;  yet  Powhatan  did  command  Vitamatomak- 
kin  '  (one  of  Powhatan's  council,  who  accompanied  her 
to  England)  '  to  see  you,  and  know  the  truth — because 
your  Countriemen  will  lie  much  !  ' " 

The  sigh  of  disillusion  is  in  every  sentence  ; 
the  last  is  a  sharp   cry  of   pain.     Who    had 


468       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

deceived  her  ?  and  why  ?  Had  Rolfe's  "  solic- 
itude and  passion  "  and  the  proselyting  diplo- 
macy of  his  lord  and  patron,  conspired  to  get 
her  ideal  Englishman  off  the  stage  of  her 
imagination  that  the  widower  might  have  a 
clear  field  ?  Conjecture  cannot  but  be  busy 
here — and,  after  all,  confess  itself  conjecture 
still. 

There  is  little  more  to  tell.  "  Formall  and 
civill "  in  outward  seeming,  she  was  at  heart 
homesick.  The  winter  tried  her  semi-tropical 
constitution  severely  ;  she  fell  ill  with  rapid 
consumption  ;  preparations  were  hastily  made 
for  her  return  to  Virginia — somewhat  oddly, 
in  Captain  Argall's  vessel.  On  the  day  before 
the  good  ship  George  was  to  sail,  the  Lady 
Rebecca  died  suddenly. 

"  It  pleased  God  at  Gravesend  to  take  this 
young  lady  to  his  mercie,  where  shee  made 
not  more  sorrow  for  her  unexpected  death 
than  joy  to  the  beholders  to  heare  and  see  her 
make  so  religious  and  godly  an  end." 

Thus  the  chapter,  signed,  "Samuel  Argally 
John  Rolfe." 

Tradition  has  it  that  she  died  sitting  in  an 
easy-chair,  by  an  open  window,  her  eyes  fixed 
wistfully  upon  the  western  ocean. 


Varina  469 

"  Her  little  child,  Thomas  Rolfe,  was  left  at 
Plimouth,  with  Sir  Lewis  Stukly,  that  desired 
the  keeping  of  it." 

She  was  but  twenty-two  years  old.  Trav- 
elled and  erudite  Purchas  writes  of  her  last 
days  : 

"  She  did  not  only  accustom  herself  to  civilitie,  but 
still  carried  herself  as  the  daughter  of  a  King,  and  was, 
according  respected,  not  only  by  the  Company  which 
allowed  provision  for  herself  and  son  ;  but  of  divers 
particular  persons  of  honor  in  their  hopeful  zeal  for  her 
to  advance  Christianity.  I  was  present  when  my  honor- 
able and  reverend  patron,  the  Lord  Bishop  of  London, 
Dr.  King,  entertained  her  with  festival,  and  state  and 
pomp,  beyond  what  I  have  seen  in  his  great  hospitalitie 
afforded  to  other  ladies.  At  her  return  towards  Vir- 
ginia, she  came  to  Gravesend  to  her  end  and  grave." 

Hon.  William  Wirt  Henry,  whose  Life  and 
Letters  of  Patrick  Henry  rank  him  among  the 
most  accomplished  historiographers  of  our 
country,  has  paid  a  more  eloquent  tribute  to 
Our  Lady  of  the  James  : 

".  .  .  Pocahontas,  who,  born  the  daughter  of  a 
savage  king,  was  endowed  with  all  the  graces  which 
become  a  Christian  princess  ;  who  was  the  first  of  her 
people  to  embrace  Christianity,  and  to  unite  in  marriage 
with    the    English    race  ;    who,  like    a    guardian    angel, 


47°      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

watched  over  and  preserved  the  infant  colony  which  has 
developed  into  a  great  people,  among  whom  her  own 
descendants  have  ever  been  conspicuous  for  true  nobil- 
ity ;  and  whose  name  will  be  honored  while  this  great 
people  occupy  the  land  upon  which  she  so  signally 
aided  in  establishing  them." 


GRAVE  OF  POWHATAN  ON  JAMES  RIVER. 


XIX 


JAMESTOWN    AND  WILLIAMSBURG 


IN  the  by-gone  time  in  which  the  tide  of 
Southern  travel  flowed  up  the  Potomac 
River,  the  custom  prevailed  of  tolling  the 
bell  as  each  steamer  passed  Mount  Vernon. 
At  the  sound  the  passengers  gathered  upon 
the  forward  deck  to  gaze  with  bared  heads 
upon  the  enclosure  in  which  are  the  ashes  of 
Washington.  Sadder  and  not  less  reverent 
might  be  the  toll  with  which  river-craft  should 
announce  the  approach  to  the  ruined  tower 
upon  a  low  headland  of  the  James. 

Here  on  May  13,  1607,  was  set  the  first 
rootlet  of  English  dominion  in  the  vast  Vir- 
ginia plantation  that  was  to  outlive  pestilence 
and  famine  and  savage  violence.  The  bounds 
of  what  an  old  writer  calls  a  "  mighty  empire  " 
are  thus  defined  : 

471 


472       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

"  On  the  east  side  is  the  ocean  ;  on  the  south 
lieth  Florida  ;  on  the  north  Nova  Francia " 
(Canada)  ;  "as  for  the  west,  the  limits  thereof 
are  unknown." 

De  la  Warr  found  upon  the  marshy  penin- 
sula, in  1610,  a  church  twenty-four  feet  broad 
by  sixty  long.  The  site  was  the  same  as  that 
occupied  by  "  the  old  rotten  tent "  under 
which  the  first  Protestant  service  in  America 
was  held.  During  his  administration  the  sanc- 
tuary was  decorated  on  Sunday  with  flowers 
and  evergreens,  and  opened  for  daily  afternoon 
service  during  the  week.  There  were  a  bap- 
tismal font,  a  tall  pulpit,  a  chancel  of  red 
cedar,  and  in  the  tower  two  bells.  These 
rang  a  joyous  peal  in  the  April  of  161 3,  when 
John  Rolfe  and  Pocahontas  knelt  in  the  aisle 
for  a  nuptial  benediction. 

The  tower  roofing  the  vestibule  stands  still. 
The  mortar  is  as  hard  as  stone,  and  the  bricks 
are  further  bound  together  by  ivy  stems  and 
roots.  The  arched  doorway  is  that  through 
which  "  the  Lady  Rebecca  "  and  her  pale-face 
bridegroom  passed  that  day,  arm  in  arm. 
Vandal  hammer  and  pick  have  dug  holes  in 
the  sides.  The  church,  flanked  by  the  tower, 
has    crumbled    to    the    foundations ;     in    the 


Jamestown  and  Williamsburg     473 

crowded  graveyard  behind  it  ruthless  tourists 
have  not  left  one  stone  upon  another.  Fennel 
brushes  our  shoulders,  and  brambles  entangle 
our  feet  as  we  explore  the  waste  grounds. 
A  quarter-mile  away  is  a  government  building 
erected  by  Sir  William  Berkeley,  and  after- 
ward and  for  many  years  the  homestead  of  the 
Jaquelins  and  Amblers.1  The  silent  decrepi- 
tude of  neglected  old  age  broods  over  the 
landscape  ;  the  tawny  river  slowly  and  surely 
licks  away  the  clayey  banks. 

The  place  is  haunted.  In  the  languorous 
calm  of  the  spring-like  weather  we  sit  upon  the 
broken  wall  in  the  shadow  of  the  ivy-bound 
tower,  the  dead  of  six  generations  under  our 
feet,  and  dream.  Now  and  then  we  talk  softly 
of  what  has  been  here,  and  of  those  who  people 
our  dream-world. 

John  Smith,  the  conqueror  of  kings,  walked 
these  shores  and  took  counsel  with  brave, 
loyal  George  Percy.  Hereabouts  he  welcomed 
Pocahontas  and  her  train  of  forest  maidens, 
and  withstood  to  their  teeth  Wingfield  and 
Ratcliffe  and  Archer.  Here  Sir  Thomas  Dale 
negotiated  the  marriage  of  Powhatan's  daugh- 

1  Since    this    chapter   was  written  the  Ambler  House  has  been 
destroyed  by  fire. 


474      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

ter  with  worthy  Master  John  Rolfe,  after  the 
Governor  had  quelled  by  Scripture  and  diplo- 
macy the  "  mighty  war  in  the  meditations  " 
of  the  grave  lover  touching  the  lawfulness  of 
wedding  a  "  strange  woman  "  who  came  of  a 
"generation  accursed."  In  the  chancel,  the 
exact  location  of  which  we  take  pains  to  iden- 
tify, the  girl-convert  to  Christianity  received 
the  water  of  baptism  and  her  new  name. 
About  this  spot  were  dug  the  ditches  of  the 
rude  fortifications  behind  which  Sir  William 
Berkeley  defied  Bacon,  the  miasmatic  moats 
from  which  the  fiery  young  rebel  drew  the 
fever  germs  that  ended  his  days  shortly  after 
he  had  laid  Jamestown  in  ashes.  Over  there, 
where  the  tangle  of  briar  and  weed  is  thickest, 
was  consigned  to  rest  the  body  of  sweet  Lady 
Frances  Berkeley,  who  sickened  and  died  at 
Green  Spring  after  she  had  seen  her  husband 
sail  for  England  ;  had  seen,  also,  the  glare  of 
the  bonfires  and  heard  the  salvoes  of  artillery 
with  which  the  colonists  rejoiced  at  the  de- 
parture of  one  whom  they  execrated  as  a  bloody 
tyrant.  A  fragment  of  her  tombstone  is  in 
the  drawing-room  of  the  isolated  dwelling  to 
our  right,  taken  in  by  a  pitying  stranger  to  pre- 
serve it  from  the  sacrilegious  hammer  aforesaid. 


Jamestown  and  Williamsburg     475 

Every  foot  of  soil  has  been  soaked  in  blood 
since  Smith  and  his  colony  took  possession  of 
the  goodly  land  in  the  name  of  God  and  King 
James.  As  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  the  level 
tract  is  enwrapped  with  historic  and  romantic 
associations,  as  it  will  to-night  be  veiled  by 
dinging  mists. 

By  the  road  along  which  Bacon  spurred  in 
hot  haste  to  take,  at  "  the  Middle  Plantation," 
the  oath  to  oppose  his  Majesty's  Governor 
and  Representative,  we  are  driven  to  the 
scene  of  that  stormy  episode  in  the  tragedy 
of  Nathaniel  Bacon's  rebellion.  A  long,  crazy 
bridge  crosses  the  creek  that  has  converted  the 
peninsula  into  an  island.  Marsh-lands,  drear- 
ily depressing,  border  the  highway  until  we 
enter  the  forest.  The  bed  of  the  winding 
road  is  sometimes  of  red,  sometimes  of  white 
clay.     Overhead  and  far  away — 

"  the  buzzard  sails  on 
And  comes  and  is  gone, 
Stately  and  still,  like  a  ship  at  sea." 

The  spell  of  pensive  silence  is  over  the 
whole  country.  We  pass  few  houses,  and 
meet  but  one  vehicle — a  wagon,  in  which  a 
party  of  hunters  is  going  river-ward.     A  slain 


476      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

deer  is  huddled  in  the  back  of  the  vehicle. 
Two  tired  dogs  trot  after  it,  with  lolling 
tongues  and  muddy  feet. 

As  we  near  the  ancient  capital  of  Virginia, 
no  stir  of  city  life  comes  out  to  greet  us. 
Governor  Francis  Nicholson  removed  the 
seat  of  government  from  Jamestown  to  the 
flourishing  Middle  Plantation  in  the  "  boom  " 
that  followed  the  accession  of  William  and 
Mary.  In  paroxysmal  loyalty,  he  laid  out 
the  future  metropolis  monogrammatically,  de- 
signing a  perpetual  testimony  to  the  wedded 
sovereigns  and  his  own  ingenuity.  One 
straight  street,  a  measured  mile  in  length, 
was  the  spinal  column  of  the  plan.  It  still 
bears  the  name  he  gave  it,  of  the  boy  Duke 
of  Gloucester,  the  heir-presumptive  to  the 
throne,  then  filled  by  his  childless  aunt  and 
uncle-in-law.  Diverging  thoroughfares  were 
to  form,  on  one  side,  a  capital  W  ;  upon  the 
other,  an  M.  The  street  had  one  terminus  in 
William  and  Mary  College,  the  second  uni- 
versity built  in  the  New  World.  Harvard 
is  her  senior.  The  Bishop  of  London  was 
the  first  Chancellor.  Sir  Christopher  Wren 
drew  the  plan  of  the  original  edifice  (burned 
in   1705).     The   Reverend   James    Blair,    the 


Jamestown  and  Williamsburg     477 

only  man  in  Virginia  who  was  not  intimidated 
by  the  eccentric  and  truculent  Governor,  was 
the  first  president. 

We  alight  at  the  gate  by  which  the  campus 
debouches  into  Duke  of  Gloucester  Street. 
To  the  right  is  the  President's  House.  The 
bricks,  alternately  gray  and  dull-red,  like  a 
checker-board,  were  brought  from  England 
two  hundred  years  ago.  The  venerable  dwell- 
ing is  occupied  now,  and  the  front  doors  of 
the  ancient  and  honorable  halls  of  learning 
stand  hospitably  open.  For  almost  a  score 
of  years  after  the  war  there  were  neither  pro- 
fessors nor  students  within  the  hoary  walls. 
On  five  mornings  of  each  week,  in  term-time, 
the  President,  whose  home  was  a  little  way 
out  of  town,  unlocked  the  door  of  the  college, 
rang  the  bell  and  read  prayers  in  the  chapel, 
preserving  by  this  form  the  charter  of  the 
institution.  Imagination  can  conjure  up  no 
more  dramatic  and  pathetic  picture  than  that 
of  the  old  man — a  war-scarred  veteran  of  the 
civil  conflict  —  plodding  through  the  daily 
routine  from  month  to  month,  and  year  to 
year.  What  a  company  of  august  shades 
filled  the  seats  as  collect  and  psalm  were  said 
to  seemingly  empty  space  !     Twenty  members 


478      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

of  Congress,  seventeen  state  Governors,  two 
Attorney-Generals,  twelve  college  professors, 
four  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, one  Chief-Justice,  four  cabinet  officers 
and  three  Presidents  of  the  United  States — 
were  graduates  of  "  old  William  and  Mary," 
besides  eminent  soldiers,  men  of  letters,  and 
reverend  divines  whose  names  star  the  pages 
of  Colonial  and  Commonwealth  history. 
Within  the  past  fifteen  years  new  shoots  have 
sprung  up  from  the  venerable  root.  By  the 
scent  of  water  in  the  guise  of  a  legislative 
appropriation,  the  noble  old  trunk  has  re- 
vived. The  faculty  is  no  longer  represented 
by  one  white-haired  man,  nor  are  his  auditors 
bodiless. 

But  we  have  to  do  now  with  the  shades,  as 
real  to  our  apprehension  and  more  interest- 
ing than  the  flesh  and  blood  of  to-day. 

Opposite  the  President's  house  is  a  building 
of  like  proportions  and  architecture,  known  in 
those  elder  times  as  the  Brafferton  School. 
Sir  Robert  Boyle,  the  bosom  friend  of  William 
Evelyn  Byrd,  of  Westover,  built  and  endowed 
it  as  an  Indian  seminary — a  modest  antitype 
of  Hampton.  Midway  between  these  houses 
is  the   statue    of    Norborne    Berkeley    (Lord 


Jamestown  and  Williamsburg     479 

Botetourt),  the  best-beloved  of  the  royal  Gov- 
ernors. It  is  of  Italian  marble,  and  was 
erected  in  1 77 1.  "  America,  behold  your 
friend  ! "  exhorts  one  panel  of  the  pedestal. 
Graceless  boys  and  marauding  military,  alike 
regardless  of  the  admonition,  have  mutilated 
what  was  really  a  noble  work  of  art.  The 
discolored  features  express,  if  anything,  mild 
surprise,  piteous  in  the  circumstances,  and  the 
head  has  been  rejoined  awry  to  the  neck,  but 
there  are  remains  of  dignity  in  figure  and 
attitude  that  make  this  solitary  ornament  of 
the  college  grounds  congruous  with  the 
place.  The  solid  silver  coffin-plate,  with  his 
name  and  coronet  engraved  upon  it,  was  stolen 
from  the  crypt  under  the  college  library  dur- 
ing the  civil  war,  and  after  its  conclusion  was 
returned  anonymously  to  Williamsburg. 

The  old  Capitol  was  the  other  terminus  of 
Duke  of  Gloucester  Street.  A  few  years  ago 
the  ruins  were  purchased  by  a  corporation 
that  pried  out  the  very  foundations,  and  bore 
them  off  to  Newport  News  to  be  worked  into 
commercial  buildings.  The  straight,  wide 
thoroughfare  presented  a  gay  pageant  in  the 
days  of  Botetourt,  Fauquier,  Dinwiddie,  and 
Spotswoode — 


480       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

"  an  animated  spectacle  of  coaches  and  four,  contain- 
ing the  '  nabobs '  and  their  dames  ;  of  maidens  in  silk 
and  lace,  with  high-heeled  shoes  and  clocked  stockings  ; 
of  youths  passing  on  spirited  horses — and  all  these 
people  are  engaged  in  attending  the  assemblies  at  the 
palace,  in  dancing  at  the  Apollo  "  (in  the  famous  Raleigh 
tavern,  part  of  which  is  still  standing)  "  in  snatching  the 
pleasure  of  the  moment,  and  enjoying  life  under  a 
regime  which  seems  made  for  enjoyment." 

The  wings  of  the  palace  remained  until 
blown  down  by  the  blasts  of  the  civil  war.  The 
site  is  occupied  by  a  schoolhouse.  From  the 
cellar  runs  a  subterranean  gallery  1 50  yards  in 
length,  opening  into  a  funnel-shaped  pit  of 
substantial  masonry.  On  each  side  of  this  is  a 
walled  chamber,  capable  of  containing  perhaps 
a  dozen  people.  In  the  early  spring-time  nar- 
cissuses, jonquils,  and  crocuses  fringe  the 
mouth  of  the  chasm.  A  clump  of  thorn-trees 
shades  it.  In  the  age  of  Indian  massacres, 
and  rebellions  many  against  powers  that  were 
to-day  and  might  not  be  to-morrow,  the  engi- 
neering and  toil  that  contrived  the  exit  from 
the  official  mansion  were  not  idly  bestowed. 

The  octagon  powder  magazine  built  in  1716, 
by  the  ablest  of  Colonial  Governors,  Alexander 
Spotswoode,  recalls  him  less  vividly  than  it 
awakens  associations  of  the  last  and  worst  of 


Jamestown  and  Williamsburg     481 

the  line  of  royal  lieutenants.     In  the  dim  dawn 
of    April  20,   1775,   a  party  of   marines   stole 


OLD  POWDER-HORN." 


across  the  palace  green  and  Gloucester  Street 
to  the  magazine,  and  before  the  Williamsbur- 
gers  were  astir,  removed  the  ammunition  to  a 


482       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

man-of-war  lying  in  the  offing.  Two  months 
later,  Dunmore  having  been  forced  to  surren- 
der the  keys  of  the  "  Old  Powder  Horn," 
some  men  entered  and  were  wounded  by  a 
spring-gun  tied  to  the  door.  Powder  barrels 
were  found  secreted  under  the  floor,  and  the 
tempest  of  popular  indignation  at  the  discovery 
of  the  infernal  plot,  drove  the  Governor  from 
Virginia  and  from  America. 

Upon  the  steps  of  the  Capitol  on  the  day  of 
the  adjournment  of  the  House  of  Burgesses  that 
same  year,  three  men  lingered  for  a  few  part- 
ing words.  The  war-cloud  was  big  upon  the 
horizon.  The  vice-regal  chariot  and  six  cream- 
colored  horses  would  never  again  flash  along 
the  long  straight  avenue  ;  there  would  be  no 
more  palace  balls  ;  Thomas  Jefferson,  sandy- 
haired  and  awkward,  had  danced  for  the  last 
time,  "with  Belinda  at  the  Apollo."  The 
glitter  and  glamour  of  the  court  had  passed 
forever  from  the  lowland  town.  Henry's  war- 
cry,  "Liberty  or  Death!"  had  been  echoed 
by  the  "shot  heard  'round  the  world."  Wash- 
ington, as  Commander-in-chief  of  Colonial 
forces,  was  in  Boston.  Richard  Henry  Lee, 
the  most  majestic  of  the  three  figures  fancy 
poses  for  us  upon  the  Capitol  steps,  wrote 
silently  upon  a  pillar  of  the  portico  : 


Jamestown  and  Williamsburg     483 

"  When  shall  we  three  meet  again  ? 
In  thunder,  lightning,  and  in  rain  ? 
When  the  hurly-burly  's  done, 
When  the  battle  's  lost  and  won." 

In  1779  the  seat  of  government  was  re- 
moved to  the  comparatively  insignificant 
village  of  Richmond,  higher  up  the  river. 
Williamsburg  was  too  accessible  to  British 
cruisers,  and  too  remote  from  Washington's 
lines.  The  measure  stamped  "  Ichabod"  upon 
the  once  haughty  little  capital.  Dry-rot, 
stealthy  and  fatal,  settled  upon  her  pleasant 
places. 

The  ghosts  are  faithful  to  it.  Each  house 
has  its  history,  or  yet  more  interesting  tra- 
dition. 

In  the  drawing-room  of  Dr.  J.  D.  Moncure 
(the  able  Superintendent  of  the  Eastern  Lun- 
atic Asylum,  situated  in  Williamsburg)  hangs 
the  portrait  of  Mary  Cary,  renowned  for 
beauty  and  belleship  in  a  family  where  beauty 
is  hereditary  and  pronounced.  Her  sister 
Sally  became  the  wife  of  George  William 
Fairfax,  the  near  neighbor  and  intimate  friend 
of  George  Washington.  The  oft-repeated 
tale  that  "Sally"  Cary  was  the  first  love  of 
the  Father  of  his  Country  is  so  effectually  re- 
futed by  a  document  courteously  furnished  to 


484      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

me  by  her  great-grandson,  Dr.  Moncure,  that 
I  naturally  prefer  his  story  to  my  own : 

"  George  William  Fairfax,  of  Belvoir  (Virginia),  and 
Poulston,  Yorkshire,  England — married,  December  17, 
1748,  Sarah,  second  daughter  of  .Colonel  Wilson  Cary, 
of  Celeys,  near  Hampton,  on  James  River.  George 
Fairfax  was  the  companion  of  Washington  on  his  sur- 
veying tour  for  Lord  Fairfax.  Washington  first  met 
Mrs.  Fairfax  at  Belvoir,  near  Mount  Vernon,  when  she 
was  brought  home  as  the  bride  of  George  William  Fair- 
fax. Miss  Mary  Cary  accompanied  her  sister  Sarah  to 
Belvoir,  and  there  met  George  Washington.  She  was 
then  but  fourteen  years  of  age.  Washington  was  only 
sixteen.  .  .  .  He  had  never  visited  the  low  country 
near  Williamsburg  prior  to  this,  and  therefore  could  not 
have  met  Sarah  Cary  until  her  marriage.  It  is  said  that 
he  fell  in  love  at  sight  with  Mary  Cary,  and  went  so  far, 
on  his  first  visit  to  Williamsburg,  as  to  ask  Colonel  Cary 
for  the  hand  of  his  daughter." 

The  big,  raw-boned  lad  found  scant  favor 
in  the  eyes  of  the  patrician  planter.  He  was 
dismissed  in  terms  so  curt  that  we  must  bear 
in  mind  paternal  pride  and  other  extenuating 
circumstances  if  we  would  keep  intact  our  idea 
of  a  fine  old  Virginia  gentleman. 

"  If  that  is  your  business  here,  sir,  I  wish 
you  to  leave  the  house.  My  daughter" — the 
swelling  emphasis  rumbles  down  the  corridor 


Jamestown  and  Williamsburg     485 

of  years — "  has  been  accustomed  to  ride  in  her 
own  coach." 

Tradition  asserts  that  the  chagrined  suitor 
took  the  choleric  parent  at  his  word,  and  that 
the  next  time  he  looked  upon  the  face  of 
his  early  love  was  when  he  passed  through 
Williamsburg  on  his  return  from  Yorktown 
after  the  surrender  of  Cornwallis.  As  we 
stroll  down  the  spinal  street,  the  window  in 
the  old  Cary  house  is  pointed  out  at  which 
Mary  Cary — now  Mrs.  Edward  Ambler — 
stood  to  watch  the  parade.  Washington  looked 
up,  recognized  her,  and  waved  a  smiling  salute 
with  his  sword,  whereat  the  lady  fainted.  A 
becoming  and  hot  difficult  feat  at  an  era  when 
to  swoon  opportunely  and  gracefully  was  a 
branch  of  feminine  education. 

The  incident  rounds  off  the  romance  artisti- 
cally, and  I  am  self-convicted  of  ungracious 
injury  to  the  unities  in  introducing,  at  the  de- 
mand of  justice,  rebutting  testimony  in  a  note 
from  another  descendant  of  the  much-wooed 
Mary  Cary  : 

"  Edward  Ambler  was  about  six  feet  in  height,  with  a 
slender  and  remarkably  genteel  figure,  and  a  fine,  manly, 
expressive  face.  As  he  had  mingled  with  the  best  society 
in  Europe,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  his  manners 


486      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

were  as  polished  as  those  of  any  nobleman  in  England. 
He  was  a  man  of  great  wealth  and  finished  education, 
and  ardently  attached  to  his  wife,  who  found  him  the 
kindest  and  most  indulgent  husband  in  the  world.  Why, 
then,  should  she  regret  the  step  she  had  taken  in  choos- 
ing between  him  and  his  illustrious  rival  ?  " 

Still  another  family  paper  mentions,  "  as  a 
curious  fact,  that  the  lady  George  Washington 
afterwards  married  resembled  Miss  Cary  as 
much  as  one  twin  sister  ever  did  another." 
We  look  at  the  portrait  upon  Dr.  Moncure's 
wall  after  all  the  evidence  is  in,  unable,  as  we 
confess,  to  trace  the  alleged  resemblance  be- 
tween the  first  and  latest  loves  of  the  Nation's 
Benefactor.  The  turban  or  cap — a  part,  we 
are  told,  of  a  fancy  dress  in  which  she  chose 
to  be  painted — is  disfiguring,  hiding  as  it  does, 
the  contour  of  the  cheeks  and  elongating  the 
face,  besides  concealing  most  of  the  hair,  which 
is  chestnut  and  apparently  abundant.  The 
complexion  is  exquisite  ;  the  eyes  are  dark 
blue.  Mary  Cary  must  have  owed  much  to 
color,  expression,  and  manner,  if  the  limner 
did  her  justice,  and  if  the  stories  of  her  sur- 
passing loveliness  are  true.  Yet,  as  we  gaze 
longer  upon  the  fresh  young  face,  we  note  the 
smooth,   low  brow,  the  spirited  curve  of  the 


MARY  CARY. 

WASHINGTON'S    FIRST    LOVE. 


Jamestown  and  Williamsburg     489 

mouth,  the  fine  oval  of  cheek  and  chin,  and 
begin  to  comprehend  the  probability  of  the 
sway  she  held  over  the  hearts  of  two  of  the 
finest  men  in  the  grand  old  Mother  State. 

A  letter,  still  extant,  from  Washington  to  a 
friend  who  had  bantered  him  upon  his  admira- 
tion of  Mrs.  Custis,  contains  this  remarkable 
passage  : 

"  You  need  not  tease  me  about  the  beauti- 
ful widow.     You  know  very  well  whom  I  love." 

The  great  chieftain  is  a  trifle  more  human 
to  our  apprehension  for  the  rift  in  the  granitic 
formation  that  grants  us  a  glimpse  of  fire  in 
the  heart  of  the  boulder. 

In  the  old  Bruton  parish  church  (founded 
in  1632)  we  are  shown  the  gray  marble  font 
from  which  Pocahontas  was  baptized.  The 
building  is  smaller  now  than  in  the  times  of 
the  royal  Governors,  by  the  depth  of  the  room 
cut  off  from  the  rear  of  the  altar.  In  this 
room  is  the  royal  gallery  where  sat  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  Crown,  his  family,  and  sub- 
officers,  during  divine  service.  A  door  at  the 
back  was  the  private  entrance  to  what  corre- 
sponded in  the  provinces  with  the  royal  "closet " 
in  English  chapel  or  cathedral.  That  shabby 
little   door  opened  Sunday  after   Sunday   for 


49°      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

one  year  to  let  pass  into  the  gallery  such  fine 
folk  as  "  the  Right  Honorable  the  Countess 
of  Dunmore,  with  Lord  Fincastle,  the  Honor- 
able Alexander  and  John  Murray,  and  the 
Ladies  Catherine,  Augusta,  and  Susan  Mur- 
ray." 

From  a  visitor  at  the  palace  we  hear  that 
"  Lady  Dunmore  is  a  very  elegant  woman. 
Her  daughters  are  fine,  sprightly,  sweet  girls. 
Goodness  of  heart  flashes  from  them  in  every 
look."  That  was  the  eighteenth-century  Jen- 
kins manner  of  speaking  of  the  occupants  of 
the  royal  "  closets."  We  volunteer  surmises 
as  to  who  filled  this  particular  post  of  honor 
upon  June  i,  1774,  the  memorable  fast-day 
when  all  the  worshippers  wore  mourning,  and 
the  text  of  the  sermon  was,  "Help,  Lord /  for 
the  godly  man  ceaseth,  for  the  faithful  fail  from 
among  the  children  of  men."  Lady  Dunmore 
and  her  daughters  may  have  had  their  dish  of 
taxed  tea  that  evening.  No  true  lover  of  her 
country  and  liberty  touched  or  tasted  the 
banned  thing. 

In  the  hospitable  homestead  of  Mrs.  Cyn- 
thia Tucker  Coleman,  not  far  away  from  the 
church,  is  a  portrait  of  Pocahontas's  greatest 
descendant,  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke.      It 


Jamestown  and  Williamsburg     493 

represents  him  at  the  age.  of  thirty,  at  which 
date  he  was  in  Congress.  The  likeness  is  as 
gentle-eyed  and  sweet  of  face  as  that  of  an 
amiable  boy  of  seventeen.  Pale  brown  hair, 
with  auburn  lights  in  it,  falls  low  on  the  fore- 
head.  There  is  not  a  token,  in  the  serene, 
contemplative  visage  and  clear  eyes,  of  the 
morbid  wretchedness  of  which  bitter  cynicism 
was  the  mask.  In  the  same  dwelling  is  kept 
the  silver  communion  service  used  in  the 
Jamestown  church  as  far  back  as  1661.  It 
bears  the  inscription,  in  English  and  Latin, 
"Mix  not  holy  things  with  profane."  There  is 
also  a  service  presented  to  "  Christ  Church, 
Bruton  Parish,"  by  Queen  Anne,  who,  a 
chronicler  affirms,  "  loved  her  college." 

In  this  home,  now  tenanted  by  his  great- 
half-niece,  John  Randolph  passed  much  of  his 
early  life.  One  of  the  fairest  pictures  con- 
jured up  by  the  magic  wand  of  tradition  is 
that  of  his  beautiful  mother — whose  portrait 
faces  his  from  the  opposite  wall — wearing  wid- 
ow's weeds,  and  kneeling,  with  a  pretty  boy 
beside  her,  "his  fresh  face  pressed  against  her 
black  gown,  in  the  picturesque  old  church  in 
Williamsburg  during  a  special  service  of  fast- 
ing and  prayer "  ;  which  special  occasion,  we 


494       Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

choose  to  believe,  was  the  same  referred  to, 
just  now,  when  the  fearless  patriot  cried  from 
the  pulpit  to  the  God  of  armies  for  help. 
Mother  and  child  were  seen  thus  by  a  young 
Bermudian,  an  alumnus  of  William  and  Mary, 
who  strayed  into  the  sanctuary,  and,  in  the 
graceful  phrase  of  his  great-grandson,  Mr. 
Charles  Washington  Coleman,  from  whom  we 
have  the  story,  "found  that  love  at  first  sight 
was  as  possible  then  as  in  '  the  still-vexed  Ber- 
moothes '  of  The  Tempest."  He  made  the 
acquaintance  of  his  charmer,  declared  his  pas- 
sion, and,  after  a  while,  was  rewarded  with  her 
heart  and  hand.  Writing  about  it  fifty  years 
afterwards,  he  said,  "  I  thought  I  had  never 
seen  so  beautiful  a  woman  or  so  beautiful  a 
child." 

"  Thus  St.  George  Tucker,  when  an  old 
man,  Professor  of  Law  in  William  and  Mary, 
and  a  Judge  of  the  United  States  Court,  re- 
corded his  first  meeting  with  his  distinguished 
stepson." 

John  Randolph  found  in  him  the  kindest, 
most  indulgent  of  stepfathers. 

One  of  the  notable  figures  of  old  Williams- 
burg society  was  known  to  the  day  of  her 
death   as   "  Lady  Christina  Stuart,"  although 


495 


JOHN  RANDOLPH,  OF  ROANOKE,  (AT  THE  AGE  OF  30). 

FROM  ORIGINAL  PORTRAIT  BY  GILBERT  STUART. 


Jamestown  and  Williamsburg     497 

married  to  Mr.  John  Griffin,  and  with  him  a 
pilgrim  in  the  New  World.  Descended  from 
the  royal  Stuart  line,  she  possessed  beauty  of 
a  high  order,  and  tales  of  her  stateliness  are  as 
numerous  as  those  of  her  piety  and  charity. 
Another  dame  of  high  degree  was  "  Lady  " 
Skipworth,  a  daughter  of  the  third  William 
Byrd,  of  Westover,  and  niece  of  "  the  fair 
Evelyn  "  whose  tragic  love-story  is  a  favorite 
theme  with  tide-water  raconteurs.  Linger- 
ing by  the  neglected  burying-ground  in  which 
she  lies,  we  hearken,  not  faithless,  not  alto- 
gether credulous,  to  the  tale  of  her  restless 
flittings  in  white  attire  from  room  to  room  of 
an  ancient  mansion  in  which  she  died. 

Seated  in  the  cosy  parlor  of  a  yet  older 
house,  face  to  face  with  the  sweet-faced,  sweet- 
toned  mistress,  we  quite  believe  the  recital 
given  by  the  voice — whose  modulations  are 
like  "  the  music  of  Carryl  "  to  ears  once  familiar 
with  the  slow  ripple  of  Virginia  speech — of  the 
click  of  high  heels  that  echoes  along  the  hall 
to  the  door  of  the  apartment  in  which  we  are 
now  seated,  and  that  the  door  flies  open  as 
the  footfalls  reach  it, — a  phenomenon  so  often 
repeated  that  the  occurrence  excites  no  alarm, 

scarcely  remark,  among  the  visible  inmates  of 
32 


498      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

the  dwelling.  Sometimes  the  wearer  of  the 
high-heeled  slippers  walks  in  broad  daylight, 
but  usually  at  night.  All  attempts  to  fathom 
the  mystery  have  been  fruitless.  The  accus- 
tomed ears  of  our  hostess  have  supplied  other 
senses  with  a  vivid  conception  of  what  manner 
of  ghost  is  the  unquiet  visitant.  The  feet  are 
small,  she  is  sure  ;  the  tread  is  light,  with  the 
buoyancy  of  youth  ;  the  carriage  is  high-bred. 
The  "  tap  !  tap  !  "  of  the  dainty  heels  begins 
at  the  back  of  the  wide  hall,  and  moves  stead- 
ily to  the  door  ;  obedient  to  her  touch,  the 
door  is  opened,  as  by  the  eager  hand  of  an 
expectant  lover, — then  all  is  silent.  Did  the 
nameless  "  she  "  meet  her  fate  upon  the  thresh- 
old? or  does  she  still  seek  and  pursue  it? 

An  upper  chamber  is  haunted  by  a  young 
Frenchman,  one  of  Rochambeau's  officers,  who 
died  here  during  the  Revolutionary  war,  the 
house  being  in  use  then  by  Washington  and 
others  in  high  command.  The  apartment 
across  the  hall  from  the  foreigner's  death-room, 
has  periodical  visitations  upon  the  anniversary 
of  the  decease  of  Chancellor  Wythe,  who  once 
owned  and  lived  in  the  mansion.  He  was 
done  to  his  death  by  poison  administered  by 
his  nephew.     At  the  hour  and  on  the  night  in 


Jamestown  and  Williamsburg      499 

which  he  breathed  his  last,  a  closet  door  un- 
closes, an  icy  wind  pours  forth,  and  a  cold 
hand  is  passed  over  the  face  of  whomsoever 
may  be  the  occupant  of  the  bed.  More  than 
one  sceptic  has  begged  for  and  obtained  per- 
mission to  sleep  in  the  chamber  upon  the 
anniversary,  but  none  has  ever  cared  to  repeat 
the  experiment. 

They  are,  one  and  all,  punctilious  ghosts, 
the  smiling  narrator  adds,  never  encroaching 
upon  each  other's  beats,  behavior  becoming 
Rochambeau's  contemporary,  the  dainty  dame 
of  the  clicking  tread,  and  the  courtly  Chancel- 
lor. A  house  upon  the  same  side  of  the 
street  is  as  affluent  in  disembodied  residents 
or  guests,  offering,  as  it  does,  especial  facilities 
for  their  occupation  and  entertainment  in  a 
double  roof  and  divers  secret  chambers,  one 
of  which  was  but  recently  discovered. 

All  this  well-attested  ghost-lore  does  not 
touch  our  hearts  or  quicken  our  fancy  as  does 
one  small  pane  of  glass  in  a  pleasant  home 
across  the  way  from  the  double-roofed  domi- 
cile. The  room  is  not  large,  and  somewhat 
secluded,  looking  out  upon  a  side-garden. 
Lilac-bushes,  mossy  with  age,  shade  the  lower 
part  of  the  window.      It  is  just  the  nook  that 


500      Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

would  be  selected  for  lonely  musing  or  silent 
weeping  by  love-sick  girl  or  stricken  woman. 
We  can  see  the  mourner  leaning  her  forehead 
against  the  sash  as  she  writes  with  her  diamond 
ring  upon  the  glass  : 

"1796.     Nov.  2 j.     Ah,  fatal  day  !" 

Tradition  is  dumb  as  to  the  trembling  record, 
— silence  we  hardly  regret. 

A  young  girl,  who  might  be  the  double  of 
what  the  sad  writer  was  before  the  fatal 
shadow  swallowed  up  the  light  of  her  world, 
offers  to  trace  a  fac-simile  of  the  piteous 
legend  upon  tissue-paper  for  me,  and  I  watch 
her  intent  face  and  slender  fingers  with  a  grow- 
ing pain  I  cannot  define,  only  that  it  goes  with 
thoughts  of  other  fingers — still  and  pulseless 
long  ago — and  of  the  old  story  that  is  never 
trite, — of  love,  of  loss,  and  heart-break. 

She  who  does  me  the  favor  does  not  know 
why  I  cannot  smile  in  thanking  her  for  her 
goodness  to  the  stranger  within  her  gates. 
As  I  might  handle  a  sentient  thing,  I  fold  the 
bit  of  paper,  and  lay  it  gently  between  the 
leaves  of  the  note-book  that  records,  after  all, 
but  little  that  we  have  seen,  heard  and  felt 
during  our  sojourn  in  the  dear  old  town  where 
ghosts  walk. 


INDEX 


Adams,  John,  in,  326 
Adams,  John  Quincy,  98,  326 
Albany,  152,   153,   154,175,187, 

201,  202,  254,  255 
Allen,  Abigail,  410 
Allen,  Edward,  407 
Alston,  Colonel,  24 
Ambler,  Edward,  94,  277,485 
Ambler,  Jaquelin,  94 
Ambler,  Mary,  95 
Ambler,  Mary  Willis,  94,  95 
Ambler,  Richard,  94 
Amblers,  The,  90,  94,  97,  473 
Ambroise,  419 
Amrusus,  419 

Anderson,  Major  Richard,  97 
Anderson,  Major  Robert,  97 
Andre,    Major   John,    116,    118, 

119,  122 
Andre,      Lieutenant        William 

Lewis,  116 
Andros,  Sir    Edmund,  175,   202, 

203 
Antigua,  15 

Appamatuck,  Queen  of,  433 
Arbuthnot,  47 

Argall,  Captain  Samuel,  448,  468 
Argyle,  Duke  of,  23 
Armistead,  Judith,  71 
Arnold,  Benedict,  6,  55,  79,  117, 

266,  267 
Arnold,  Mrs.  Benedict,  267 


B 


Bacon,  Nathaniel,  474,  475 

Baker,  Miss  Alice,  384 

Hallston  Spa,  300 

Bard,  Dr.,  184 

Barrack  Hill,  149,  152 

Battery,  The,  195 

Bayard,  Nicholas,  175,  244,  279 

Beck,  T.  Romeyn,  182 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  141 

Bellamy,  Rev.  Dr.,  340 

Belleville  (N.  J.),  162 

Bellomont,  Richard  Coote,  Earl 
of,  207,  208,  241,  242,  243, 
246,  247,  248,  249,  250 

Belvoir,  261,  484 

Berkeley,  50,  53,  60,  61,  62,  69, 

73 
Berkeley,  Carter,  64 
Berkeley,  Lady  Frances,  474 
Berkeley,  Sir  William,  105,  473, 

474 
Bermuda  Hundred,  70 
Bethlehem  (Penn.),  132,  135 
Beverley,   258,    265,    267,     273, 

279 
Beverwyck,  202 
Bland,  Theodorick,  33 
Blount,  Martha,  31,  38 
Bluff,  Drewry's,  56 
Bogardus,    Everardus,    172,    245 
Bogart,  David,  305,  311 
Bonaparte,  Jerome,  322 


50i 


502 


Index 


Bonaparte,  Joseph,  289,  321 
Bonaparte,    Napoleon,  289,  290, 

293 
Boutetourt,  Lord,  479 
Bouwerie,  The  Dominie's,   172, 

173 
Bouillon,  Godfrey  of,  351 
Bowen,  Eliza,  286,  306 
Boyle,  Charles,  54 
Boyle,  Sir  Robert,  478 
Braddock,  General,  262,  276 
Brandon,    Lower,  2,   3,   5,  6,  8, 

14,  19,  25,  27,  32,  37 
Brandon,  Martin's,  2 
Brandon,  Upper,  27,  29,  37,  73 
Brant,  Joseph,  184,  187 
Braxton,  Carter,  64 
Brid,  Le,  34 
Bridge,  King's,  239 
Brockholls,    Anthony,  161,    162, 

163,  169,  254 
Brockholls,  Joanna,  254 
Burgesses,  House  of,  66, 105,  482 
Burlington  (N.  J.),  112 
Burr,  Aaron,  296,  299,  300,  301, 

302,    304,  305,  307,  308,  311, 

313,  314,  318,  322,  326 
Burr,  Mrs.,  315,   316,   317,  318, 

320 
Burr,  Theodosia,  184 
Burwell,  Rebecca,  94 
Butler,  General,  10 
Byrd  Coat-of-Arms,  34 
Byrd,  Evelyn,  24,  38,  43,  45,  47, 

51,  52,  83,497 
Byrd,  George  L.,  27 
Byrd,  Mrs.,  55,  77,  78,  79 
Byrds,  The,  33 
Byrd,  William  (1),  34,  37,  52 
Byrd,  William  (2)  Evelyn,  16,  23, 
'24,   25,  34,  37.  38,  39,  41,  47. 

57,  255 
Byrd,  Colonel  William  (3),   53, 

54,  56,  76,  497 


Caghonowaga,  418 
Caldwell,  James,  187 


Carrington,  Mrs.  Edward,  95 
Carter,  Charles,  76 
Carter  Coat-of-Arms,  66 
Carter,    Elizabeth   Hill,   53,    76^ 

81 
Carter,  Hill,  of  Shirley,  64 
Carter,  John,  66,  69,  75 
Carter,    Robert  ("King"),    66, 

67,  69,  70 
Carter,  Robert  Randolph,  75 
Carters,  The,  2,  70,  75 
Cary,  Mary,  94,  277,  483,  484, 

485,  4S6 
Cary,  "  Sally,"  483,  484 
Castle  Philipse,  240 
Catskill,  202 

Caughnawaga,  419,  426,  430 
Chamberlayne,  William,  34 
Chamblee,  393,  398 
Champney    House    and    Studio, 

427 
Champney,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Wil- 
liams, 384,  385,  388 
Charles  L,  105 

Chastelleux,  Marquis  de,  79,  290 
Chester,  Bishop  of,  425 
Chesterfield,  Lord,  238 
Chew,  Anne,  107 
Chew,  Anne  Penn,  126,  129 
Chew,  Benjamin,  108,  109,  112, 

113,  116,  121,  125 
Chew,  Benjamin,  Jr.,  125 
Chew,  Beverly,  130 
Chew  Coach,  130 
Chew  Coat-of-Arms,  105 
Chew,  John,  106 
Chew,  Joseph,  130 
Chew,  "Peggy,"  116,   117,  118. 

120 
Chew,  Samuel,  106 
Chew,  Dr.  Samuel,  107 
Chickahominy,  The,  432 
Church,  Benjamin,  383 
City  Hall,  Yonkers,  268 
City  Point  (Va.),  70 
Clarendon,  Lord,  212 
Claypole,  Elizabeth,  23 
Clermont,  216,  222,  227,  250 


Index 


503 


Clinton,  "  Caty,"  181,  195,  196 
Clinton,  Governor  George,   181, 

255 
Cliveden,  104,  in,  113,  114,  116, 

1  r8, 122,  125,  126,  127 
Codwise,  David,  343 
Coleman,    Charles   Washington, 

494 
Coleman,  Mrs.  Cynthia  Tucker, 

490 
Colfax,  Ester,  163,  165,  170 
Colfax,  George,  169 
Colfax,  Lieutenant,  165,  170 
Colfax,  Schuyler,  169 
Colfax,    Dr.    William    Schuyler, 

162,  170 
Colfax,  Dr.  W.  W.,  149,  169 
Cooke,  Rose  Terry,  413 
Cooper,  Fenimore,  60 
Cornwallis,  Lord,  55,  79 
Corotoman,  69 
Crafts,  Alexander,  221 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  376 
Cromwell,  Thomas,  376 
Cromwell,      "alias     Williams," 

377 
Croton,  177,  178,  250 
Cubieres,  Marquis  de,  290 
Cumberland,  Fort,  53 
Curtis,  George  William,  410 
Custis,       George       Washington 

Parke.  135,  136 
Custis,  Nelly,  135 
Custis,  The  Widow,  277 


D 


Dale,  Sir  Thomas,  64,  447,  449, 
451,  452,  453,  459,  460,  461, 
462,  473 

Dartmouth,  Lord,  212 

Deerfield   (Massachusetts),    378, 

379,  383,  384,  385,  392,  393, 
396,  403,  404,  407,  408,  409, 
410,  411,  416,  418,  429,  430 
De  Joinville,  Prince,  289,  321 
De  la  Warr,  Lord,  447,  456,  472 
De  Lancey,  175,  279 


De  Lauzun,  178 

De  Maudit,  Chevalier  de,  114 

De  Peyster,  Catherine,  176,  195 

De  Peysters,  250,  279 

De  Rogers,  419 

Deshler,  Catherine,  137 

Deshler,  David,  131,  132,  137 

Deshler  Place,  137 

Dividing  Line,  25 

Dorchester  (Massachusetts),  346, 

347,  348,  349,  351,'  352,  382 
Drewry,   Major  A.   H.,    56,   58, 

60 
Dudley,  His  Excellency,  Joseph, 

388,  417 
Dudley,  Mr.  William,  417 
Dunbar,  Rev.  John,  52 
Dunmore,  Lady,  490 
Dunmore,  Lord,  482,  490 
Dyckhuyse,  Swantie,  156 


Earle-Cliff,  325 

Earle,   General   Fei  jinand   Pin- 

ney,  325 
Eels,  Mrs.,  407 
Elphinstone,  Lord,  178 
Ercole,  Alcide,  322 
Esopus,  155 
Evelynton,  52 
Everett,  Edward,  12 


Fairfax,    George   WJliam,    483, 

484 
Fairfax,   Sarah  Cary,    261,   483, 

484 
Federal  Rock,  142 
Ffrench,  Thomas,  407 
Fillmore,  Millard,  n,  19 
Flagg,  Ethan,  273,  275 
Fletcher,  Governor,  245 
Fort  Washington,  282,  285,  288, 

292,  308 
Fountleroy,  Colonel  Moore,  66 
Frankford,  136" 


504 


Index 


Franklin,  Benjamin,  24,  54,  178 
Franks,  Colonel   Isaac,  132,  135 
Fredericksburg  (Va.),  112 
Fulton,  Robert,  238 


Gay,  The  Poet,  47 
Geer,  Mrs.  Gertrude,  339 
Germantown    (Penn.),  131,  132, 

135 
"  Ghost-room,"  The,  195.   197 
Gooch,  Governor,  258 
Grahame,  James,  242 
Green  Bay  (Wisconsin),  426 
Greenfield  (Massachusetts),  395 
Green  River,  395,  430 
Green  Spring,  474 
Greenway,  Ann,   348,   361,   365, 

366 
Greenway,  John,  348,  365 
Griffin,  Mr.  John,  497 
Grolier  Club,  The,  130 


II 


Hamilton,  Alexander,   181,  266 

296,  326 
Hamilton,  Mrs.  Alexander,  181, 

326 
Hamor,  Master  Ralph,  449,  461 
Harlem,  314 
Harlem  Heights,  262,  265,  277, 

279,  292,  300 
Harrison,  Mrs.  Anne,  50 
Harrison,   Benjamin,   of    Berke- 
ley, 5,  24,  54,  69 
Harrison,  Major  Charles  Shirley, 

27 
Harrison,  George  Evelyn,  8,  26 
Harrison,    Mrs.   Isabella,   8,  10, 

11,  14,  19,  27 
Harrison,  Miss,  25,  56 
Harrison,  Nathaniel,  5,  7 
Harrison,  William  Byrd,  27 
Harrison,   Mrs.    William    Byrd, 

31 


Harrison,  General  William 
Henry,  18,  62 

Harrisons,  The,  of  Berkeley  and 
Brandon,  2,  50,  53 

Harvie,  General  Jaquelin  Bur- 
well,  87 

Hatcher,  William,  65 

Hatfield    (Massachusetts),     392, 

393 
Hawes,  Samuel  Pierce,  355 
Hening,  33 

Henry,  Patrick,  469,  482 
Henry,  Hon.  William  Wirt,  469 
Hill,  "Sir  "  Edward,  65,  66,  69, 

75 
Hill,  General,  413 
Hingham,  327 
Hinman,  Colonel,  330 
Hogg  Island,  105 
Homevvood,  105 
Horsemander,  Wareham,  52,  69 
Hotspur,  Harry,  351 
Howard,    Colonel   John    Eager, 

121,  122,  123 
Howards,  The  Baltimore,  119 
Howe,   The  American  General, 

145 
Howe,  Sir  William,  116 
Hunter,  Governor,  212 


Ingleby,  Lady  Frances,  5 


James  I.,  105 

James  River,  The,  1,2,  3,  4,  14, 

55.  63,  105,  130 
Jamestown,   105,  439,   440,  441, 

442,  448,  449,  45 1;  453,  476 
Jans,  "  The  Widow,"  172 
Jansen,  Anneke,  172,  173 
Jansen,  Rolef,  202 
Japazaws,  448,  449 
Jaquelin,  Edward,  94 
Jaquelins,  The,  473 


Index 


505 


Jefferson,    Thomas,  5,  94,  326, 

482 
Josephine,    The   Empress,   293, 

294 
Jumel  House,  305,  309 
Jumel,  Madame,   288,  290,   291, 

293,  296,   299,   301,  302,  303, 

304,  306,  307,  311,   313,   322, 

324,  326 
Jumel,    Stephen,   285,  286,  287, 

288,  289,  291,   293,    295,   300, 

311,  317,  326 
Jumels,  The,  321 


K 


Kent,  Chancellor,  318 

Kidd,     Captain     William,    208, 

243,  246,  247,  248,  249 
Kieft,  William,  171 
Kightewanke  Creek,  174 
King's  Bridge,  239 
King's  College,  256 
King's  Highway,  141 
Kneller,  Sir  Godfrey,  17,  39,  45 
Knox,  General,  113,  326 


Lafayette,  15,  129,  181,  266 
Lancaster  County,  66 
Laud,  Archbishop,  105 
Laurens,  Colonel,  114 
Lawson,  Sir  Wilfred,  38 
Lee,  Annie  Carter,  70 
Lee,  Arthur,  55 

Lee,  "Light-Horse  Harry,"  70 
Lee,  Richard  Henry,  482 
Lee,  Robert  E.,  70 
Leigh,  Benjamin  Watkins,  101 
Leisler,  Colonel,  154 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  10 
Linlithgow,  201,  202,  213,  230 
"  Livengus,"  201 
Livingston,  Clermont,  222 
Livingston,    George   of   Linlith- 
gow, 201 


Livingston,     Gertrude     (Alida), 

201,  209 
Livingston,  Gilbert  Robert,  335 
Livingston,  Henry,  216 
Livingston,     Herman    (1),    213, 

222,  233 
Livingston,  Herman  (2),  219 
Livingston,    Joanna,    176,    191, 

192 
Livingston,  John,  2r6,  222,  223, 

225,  227,  228,  230 
Livingston,  John  Henry,  222 
Livingston  Manor,  201,  213,  216, 

219,  221,  222,  234 
Livingston,  "  Messer  John,"  202 
Livingston,  Philip,  216,  217,  226 
Livingston,  Robert  C,  216 
Livingston,  Robert,  Jr.,  216 
Livingston,    Robert  Tong,   221, 

222 
Livingston,    Robert    (the     First 

Lord  of  the  Manor),  201,  202, 

204,   205,  207,  208,  211,  212, 

219,  221,   233,   237,   243,   246, 

248,  249,  343 
Livingston,  Sarah,  Lady  Stirling, 

226 
Livingstons,  The,  242,  250,  279 
Livingston,  Walter,  216 
Longmeadow     (Massachusetts), 

415,  42r,  422 
Loockermans,  Annetje,  173 
Lovelace,  173 
Low,  Cornelius  P.,  267 


M 


Madagascar,  243,  244,  247 
Mahopac,  Lake,  265,  279 
Malvern  Hills,  70 
Mandeville,  149 
Manhattan,  Island  of,  173,  267 
Manor,  Van  Cortlandt,  174,  175 
Manor-House,    The   Van    Cort- 
landt, 171,  176,  178,  179,  180, 
183,  195,  199 
Marlborough,  Duke  of,  15 
Marriner,  "  Farmer,"  282,  285 


506 


Index 


Marshall,  Chief-Justice,  John, 
84,  85,  86,  88,  89,  93,  94,  95, 
96,  296 

Marshall  House,  The,  85,  86 

Marshall,  Mrs.,  97,  98 

Martin,  John,  2,  7 

Mary  and  John,  The,  346,  357, 

365 
Maryland,  106 

Massachusetts,    327,    346,    349, 
361,  369,   37o.   375,  378,  382, 
403,  415,  422,  425 
Massassoit,  379 
Mather,  Rev.  Eleazar,  396 
Mather,  Eunice,  382,  410 
Mather,  Esther,  396 
Mather,  Richard,  382 
Mathews,  Rev.  John  Rutherford, 

183 
Mathews,  Mrs.  John  Rutherford, 

191,  192 
Mayo,  Major,  42 
McClenachan,  Blair,  125 
Meacham,  Rev.  Joseph,  417,  421 
Meeting-House  Hill,  353 
Metacomet,  379 
Milborne,  Captain,  154 
Mi  not  House,  347 
"  Mischianza,"  The,    116,    117, 

122 
Moncure,   Dr.  J.   D.,  483,   484, 

486 
Montague,  Charles,  Earl  of  Hali- 
fax, 24 
Monticello,  6 
Monroe,  Fort,  10,  11 
Mordaunt,  Charles,  47 
Mordaunts,  The,  49 
Morris,  Elliston  Perot,  131,  139, 

140 
Morris,  Governor  Samuel,    139, 

140 
Morris,  Henry  Gage,  283 
Morris  House,  The,  131,  133,  *37 
Morris,    Roger,    262,    268,    276, 

277,  279,  280,  282 
Morris,   Mrs.    Roger,  265,    273, 

277,  285,  324 


Morristown   (N.    J.),    141,    142, 

145 
Morristown  Road,  150,  151 
Moseley,  Abigail,  365 
Moseley,  Sarah,  370 
Mowatt,  Anna  Cora,  20 


N 


Nanfran,     Lieutenant-Governor, 

208 
Nansemond  County,  66 
Napoleon  I.,  289,  290,  293,  317, 

324  • 
Napoleon,  Louis,  289,  321 
Napoleon,  Prince  ("Plon-Plon"), 

322 
New  Amsterdam,  171,  172 
New  Jersey,  141,  156,  157,  161 
New  York  City,   130,   131,  172, 
227,  243,  245,  247,  250,  254, 
256,  258,  261,  262,  273,  276, 
286,  291,  299,  301,  306,  314 
Nicholson,  Sir  Francis,  476 
Norfolk,  2,  70 
Norfolk,  Upper,  66, 
Norton,  Charles  Eliot,  410 


Oak  Hill,  upon  Livingston 
Manor,  201,  216,  222,  226, 
227,  228,  231,  233,  234,  238 

Opechancanough,  61,432 


Page,  Major  Mann,  14 

Page,  Mann,  of  Timberneck,  69 

Page  of  Pagebrook,  53 

Pagerie,  de  la,  293 

Palace,  Williamsburg,  97 

Palatines,  211.  212,  213,  216 

Parke,  Colonel  Daniel,  15, 16, 17, 

34,  38 
Parke,  Lucy,  44 
Passaic  County,  157 
Passaic  River,  157 


Index 


507 


Patawomekes,  The,  474 

Paulding,  J.  R.,  11 

Paulet,  Sir  John,  33 

Peale,  Rembrandt,  75 

Pearce,    Richard,  347 

Peirce,  Frederick  Clifton,  347 

Peirce,  Professor  J.  M.,  346 

Penn,  John,  112 

Penn,  William,  129 

Pennsylvania,  107,  108 

Percie,  Master  George,  351,  451, 

473 

Percys,  The,  of  Northumber- 
land, 351 

Perot,  Huguenot,  131 

Peterborough,  Lord,  47,  48 

Philadelphia,  108,  in,  120,  131, 
132,  133 

Philip,  King,  379,  383 

Philipse,  Eva,  250 

Philipse,  Frederick  (1),  239,  243, 
248,  249,  250 

Philipse,  Frederick  (2),  250,  253, 
255.  258 

Philipse,  Frederick  (3),  256,  257, 
265 

Philipse,  Manor- House,  239,  240, 
251,  253,  255,  256,  262,  267, 
268,  272,  273,  276,  278 

Philipse,  Mary,  261,  262 

Philipse,  My  Lady,  249 

Philipse,   Philip,  249 

Philipse,  Susan,  257 

Phillips,  General,  6 

Pierce,  Abigail  Thompson,  352, 
#354,  362 

Pierce,  Hon.  Andrew,  370 

Pierce,  Ann,  357 

Pierce,  Hon.  Benjamin,  370 

Pierce  Crest,  346 

Pierce,  Elizabeth,  357 

Pierce,  Elizabeth  How,  358 

Pierce,  General  E.  W.,  369 

Pierce,  George  Francis,  374 

Pierce,  President  Franklin,  370 

Pierce,  Henry  of  Brookline,  370 

Pierce  Homestead,  346,  349 

Pierce,  John  (1),  347 


Pierce  John  (2),   352,   353,    362, 

366 
Pierce,  Rev.  John,  370 
Pierce,  Lewis,  370,  374 
Pierce,  Lewis  Francis,  370,  373, 

374 
Pierce,  Hon.  Oliver,  370 
Pierce,    Robert,   346,    347,    348, 

35i,  365.  366 
Pierce,  Samuel  (1),  352,  365 
Pierce,  Samuel  (2),  355 
Pierce,  Samuel  (3),  355 
Pierce,  Colonel  Samuel  (4),   355, 

357,  358,  359,  366,  369,  374 
Pierce,  Colonel  Thomas   Went- 

worth,  370 
1    Pierce,  William  Augustus,  374 
Pocahontas,    61,    64,    432,    434, 

436,  439,  441,  443,  444,  446, 
.   447,  448,  449,  454,  457,  461, 

466,  469,  472 
Pocomptuck  Indians,  378 
Pocomptuck  Village,  379,  385 
Pompiton  Indians,  1 51 
Pompton  (N.  J.),  141,  142,  145, 

146,  149,  161,  162 

Pompton  Plains,  151 

Pope,  Alexander,  31 

Pope,  General,  55 

Port  Richmond,  319 

Potomacs,  The,  447,  448,  450 

Powhatan, The  Emperor,  70,432, 
433,  434,  439,  441,  442,  443, 
449,  450,  452,  456,  46o,  466, 

467,  470,  473,  477 
Powhatan  River,  I 
Presque  Isle,  2 

Provost,  Mrs.  Theodosia,  305 
Purchas,  469 


Quebec,  391,  401,  417 
Queen  Street  Mansion,  250 


Ramapo  Lake,  145 
Ramapo  River,  146 


5o8 


Index 


Randolph,    John    of    Roanoke, 

490,  493,  494,  495 
Randolphs,  The,  2 
Ratcliffe,  President,  446,  473 
Read,  Mrs.  William,  122 
Rebecca,   The  Lady,   465,   466, 

468,  472 
Red  Mill,  The,  265 
Reed,  Adjutant-General,  281 
Richmond,  Virginia,  I,  8,  70,  76, 

84,  97,  296,  462,  483 
Ritchie,  Dr.,  8,  9,  10 
Ritchie,  Thomas,  8 
Ritchie,  Miss  Virginia,  1 1 
Ritchie,  William  Foushee,  20 
Robinson,  Colonel  Beverley,  257, 

258,  261,  266,  267,  277 
Robinson,  Frederick,  258 
Robinson,  Colonel  William,  5 
Rochambeau,  178 
Rolfe,  John,   64,  453,  455,  456; 

461,  462,  465,  466,  468,  472, 

474 
Rolfe,  Thomas,  469 
Rouville,  Major  Hertel  de,  386 
Ruffin,  F.  G.,  86 
Ruffin,  Mrs.  F.  G.,  87 
Rutgers  College,  181 


San  Domingo,  285 

Saratoga,  300 

Schuyler,  Captain  Abraham,  155 

Schuyler,  Adon'iah,  157,  158,  161 

Schuyler,  Alida  (van),  201 

Schuyler,    Arent   (1),    154,    155, 

156,  161,  162 
Schuyler,    Arent  (2),    157,    158, 

161 
Schuyler,  Casparus,  163 
Schuyler,  Cornelius,  161 
Schuyler,  Ester,  163 
Schuyler    and     Colfax    Houses, 

141 
Schuyler  Homestead,    Pompton, 

N.  J.,  159 


Schuyler,  Johannes  (John),  153 

418,  419,  420,  421 
Schuyler,    Margritta,     152,    154, 

155 
Schuyler,   Peter,    153,   154,   155, 

163 
Schuyler,  General  Philip,  181 
Schuyler,     Philip    Petersen,    (1) 

152,  155,  175,  201 
Schuyler,   Philip    (2\    157,    16 r, 

162 
Schuyler,   "  The  Widow,"    154, 

156,  163 
Schuyler,  Van,  175 
Schuylers,  The,  242 
Selyus,  Henricus,  241,  245 
Six  Nations,  255 
Shaccoa's,  26,  43 
Sharon  (Connecticut),  327,  329 
Sharon,     Meeting- House,     330, 

332 
Sheldon,  Rev.  George,  385 
Sheldon  House,  387 
Sheldon,  Captain  John,  387,  407 
Sheldon,  Mrs.  John,  387,  430 
Shippen,  Chief-Justice,  117 
Shippen,  Margaret,  117 
Shirley,  2,  63,    64,    69,   73,   74, 

75,83 
Shirley,  Sir  Thomas,  64 
Shirley,  West,  64 
Shrewsbury,  247 
Skinner,  Cortlandt,  261 
Skipworth,  "  Lady,"  497 
Smith,  Cotton  Mather,  328,  329 

330,  332,  333 
Smith,    Gilbert    Livingston  (1) 

335,  336 
Smith,     Gilbert    Livingston  (2} 

339 
Smith,     Helen     Evertson,     331 

339,  344,  345 
Smith,    Helen    Livingston,  335 

344 
Smith,  Henry,  327 
Smith  Homestead,  327,  337 
Smith,  Ichabod,  328 
Smith,  Jerusha  Mather,  328 


Index 


509 


Smith,  Captain  John,  73,  351, 
432,  433,  435,  436,  439,  440, 
441,  442,  444,  446,  447,  465, 
466,  467,  473,  475 

Smith,  Governor  John  Cotton, 
332,  334,  340 

Smith,  Rev.  John  Cotton,  D.D., 

331 

Smith,  John  Cotton,  Jr.,  335 
Smith,      Madame      Temperance 

Worthington,    328,    331,    332, 

336,  344 
Smith,  Margaret  Evertson,  334, 

343 

Smith,  Robert  Worthington,  335, 

336 

Smith,  Rev.  Roland  Cotton,  331 

Smith,  Samuel,  328 

Smith,  William  Mather,  334 

Smith's  (John)  Coat-of- Arms,  432 

Smith's  (Sharon)  Crest,  327 

Somers,  247 

Southwell,  Sir  Robert,  24 

Spotswood,  Governor  Alex- 
ander, 5,  480 

Staatje  (Little  Village),  213,  228, 
238 

Stafford,  105 

Stanhope,  Philip,  238 

Steuben,  178 

Stevenson,  Anne,  181,  196 

Stevenson,  John,  181 

Stirling,  Lord,  142,  226 

Stoddard,  Captain  John,  387, 
392,  413,  4i8 

Stone,  Dr.,  10 

Stone,  Mrs.,  10 

Stuart,  Lady  Christina,  464 

Stuckly,  Sir  Lewis,  469 

Stuyvesant,  171 

Sunnybank, 146,  151 


Talleyrand,  289 

Tamaranachquse,  204 

Taylor,  Captain  John,  195,  196 


Taylor,  Maria,  37 
Teller,  Jenneke,  155,  156 
Terhune,  Rev.  Dr.,  146 
Tew,  Thomas,  245 
Thompson,  Rev.  William,  352 
Thorpe,  George,  6.1 
Torlonia,  Prince,  323 
Towowa,  164 
Try  on,  Governor,  177,  178 
Tuckahoe,  2 
Tyler,  John,  11 

U 

Union  Iron  Works,  112 

V 

Van  Buren,  John,  220 
Van  Blum,  Admiral,  334 
Van  Cortlandt,  Abram,  177 
Van      Cortlandt,     Miss      Anne 

Stevenson,  182 
Van      Cortlandt,     Mrs.       Anne 

Stevenson,  181,  196 
Van  Cortlandt,  "  Caty  "  Clinton, 

181,  195,  196 
Van   Cortlandt,   Mrs.   Catherine 

E.,  182,  187,  188,  199 
Van  Cortlandt  Coat-of-Arms,  171 
Van  Cortlandt,  Gilbert,  192 
Van    Cortlandt,    Captain  James 

Stevenson,   183 
Van  Cortlandt,    Joanna  Living- 
ston, 179,  180,  188,  191,    192 
Van  Cortlandt,  John,  177,  184 
Van     Cortlandt    Manor-House, 

171,  174,   176,  179,    180,   183, 

185,  250 
Van  Cortlandt,  "  Nancy,"  192 
Van   Cortlandt,   Olaf   Stevense, 

171,  172,  173,   176,  244 
Van  Cortlandt,    Philip  (1),   176, 

177,  184,  192 
Van  Cortlandt,    Philip  (2),  177, 

180,  187 


5io 


Index 


Van  Cortlandt,  Philip  (Stephen's 
son),  178 

Van  Cortlandt,  Pierre  (1),  176, 
I77»  x79.  I84,  188,  191,  192 

Van  Cortlandt,  Pierre  (2),  181, 
195,  196 

Van  Cortlandt,  Pierre  (3),  177, 
181 

Van  Cortlandt,  Stephen,  177 

Van  Cortlandts,  The,  153,  200, 
242,  250,  279 

Vandreuil,  Marquis  de,  419 

Vandyke,  31,  38 

Van  Rensselaer,  Philip  Schuy- 
ler, 192 

Van  Rensselaers,  The,  153 

Van  Schuyler,  154 

Van  Wagenen,  Hendrick  Gar- 
ritse,  157,  162 

Varina,  432,  456,  462 

Verplancks,  The,  153 

Virginia,  1,  5,  8,  25,  34,  38,  53, 
62,  63,  64,  65,  66,  69,  70, 
73,  84,  87,  101,  105,  106,  112, 
258,  261,  277,  436,  447,  461, 
482 

W 


Walker,  Admiral,  413 
Wain,  Jesse,  136 
Walthoe,  Mister,  24 
Ward,  Sophia  Howard,  115 
Warham,  Rev.  John,  382 
Warner,  Charles  Dudley,  410 
Washington,  Fort,  262,  288,  292, 

308 
Washington,  George,  53,  75, 
in,  115,  121,  132,  135,  136, 
137,  139,  140,  142,  145,  150, 
164,  170,  178,  179,  225,  256, 
261,  262,  265,  266,  267,  271, 
272,  277,  280,  281,  282,  326, 
471,  482,  483,  484,  485,  486, 
487 
Washington  Heights,  306,  325, 
326 


Washington's  Headq'trs  (Pomp- 
ton,  N.  J.),  142,  143,  151 

Washington,  Lady,  135,  137, 
150,  170,  282,  326 

Werowocomoco,  432,  433,  435, 
442,  444,  453 

Westhrope,  Elizabeth,  2 

Westhrope,  Major  John,  2 

Westover,  2,  24,  25,  33,  34,  37, 
38,  41,  44,  48,  50,  52,  53,  54, 
55,  57,  60,  73 

Westover  MSS.,  5,  25 

Wethersfield  (Connecticut),  164, 

327 
Whiston,  England,  64 
Whitefield,  George,  200,  232 
Wickhams,  The,  88 
William  and  Mary,  239,  476 
William   and  Mary    College,    5, 

99,  476,  478 
William  of  Normandy,  34,  201 
Williamsburg  (Va.),  5,  471,  476, 

479,  483,  4S4,  485,  493,  494 
William  of  Yevan,  376,  377 
WTilliams   Church    and    Parson- 
age, 405,  407 
Williams  College,  336,  378 
Williams  Crest,  376 
Williams,  Eleazar,   Rev.,    Louis 

XVII. ,  426 
Williams,     Eleazar,      383,     387, 

403,  417,  421 
Williams,  Eliakim  (1),  383 
Williams,  Eliakim  (2),  384,  392, 
Williams,  Eliakim  (3),  413 
Williams,  Elijah,  422 
Williams,  Mrs.  Elijah,  422 
Williams,  Ephraim,  377 
Williams,  Esther,  383,  403,  416 
Williams,  Eunice,  384,  417,  418, 

419,  421,  422,  429 
Williams,  Mrs.  Eunice,  387,  388, 

391,  396,  399,  430 
Williams,    Rev.  John,   378,  3S0, 

387,  388,   391,  396,  397,  399, 

403,  404,  407,  409,  410,  413, 

417,  418 
Williams,  John  (2),  384,  392 


Index 


5" 


Williams,  John  (3),  426 
Williams,  Chief  Joseph,  430 
Williams,    Mary    Hobart    Jour- 
dan,  426 
Williams  of  Penrhyn,  376 
Williams,  Richard,  376 
Williams,    Robert   of    Roxbury, 

375,  377-  378 
Williams,  Samuel,  383,  403,414, 

416 
Williams,  Sarah,  425,  426 
Williams,    Stephen,    383,     403, 

417,  421 
Williams,  Stephen  W.    (M.D.), 

375 
Williams  (Surgeon),  425 
Williams,  Thomas,  426,  429 
Williams,    Warham,    384,    403, 

415,  4i6 


Williams,  William,  377 
Williamses,  The,  375 
Williamstown,  378 
Willing,  "  Molly,"  77 
Wise,  Henry  A.,  84 
Wister,  Charles,  136 
Withington,  Melissa,  370 
Worthington,       Rev.     William. 

332 
WTorthington,  Sir  William,  328 
Wren,  Sir  Christopher,  476 
Wynne,  Thomas,  27 
Wythe,  Chancellor,  498,  499 


Yonkers,  239,  240,  251,  268,  271 


More  Colonial  Homesteads 
and  Their  Stories 


Doughoregan  Manor 
JOHffe©^  ^^fe^T^i^ST^^^fin?^  YORK 

COME  one  of  the  many  delvers  in  the  strata 
^     of  colonial  history  i 

ium   of  statistical  labours  hat 

proportion  of  well-born  pio;  ere  driven 

across  the  sea  by  unfortunate  love  affairs. 
The  result  would  show  that  a  Cupid-in-tears, 
or  a  spray  of  Love-1-  ling,  might  be  in- 

corporated   with    the   arms  of  of  our 

proudest  commonwealths. 

In  the  year  of  our  Lord  1738,  William  John- 
son, eldest  son  .of  Christopher  Johnson,  Esq., 
of  Warrenton,  County   Down,  Ireh  led 

in    the    Mohawk   Valley.      His    u  eel- 


More  Colonial  Homesteads 
and  Their  Stories 


JOHNSON  HALL,  JOHNSTOWN,  NEW  YORK 

SOME  one  of  the  many  delvers  in  the  strata 
of  colonial  history  may  beguile  the  ted- 
ium of  statistical  labours  by  computing  what 
proportion  of  well-born  pioneers  were  driven 
across  the  sea  by  unfortunate  love  affairs. 
The  result  would  show  that  a  Cupid-in-tears, 
or  a  spray  of  Love-lies-bleeding,  might  be  in- 
corporated with  the  arms  of  several  of  our 
proudest  commonwealths. 

In  the  year  of  our  Lord  1738,  William  John- 
son, eldest  son  of  Christopher  Johnson,  Esq., 
of  Warrenton,  County  Down,  Ireland,  settled 
in    the    Mohawk   Valley.      His  was   an  excel- 


2  More  Colonial  Homesteads 

lent  and  ancient  family.  Sir  Peter  Warren, 
well  known  to  readers  of  English  naval  history, 
was  his  maternal  uncle.  Another  uncle,  Ol- 
iver Warren,  was  a  captain  in  the  Royal  Navy 
in  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne  and  George  I. 
Sir  Peter  Warren  owned  an  extensive  tract 
of  land  on  both  sides  of  the  Mohawk  River 
and  a  handsome  residence  in  New  York  City. 
In  the  latter  he  lived  for  a  dozen  years  or 
more  after  his  marriage  with  a  daughter  of 
James  De  Lancey,  at  one  time  Lieutenant- 
Governor  of  New  York,  and  prominent  in  the 
annals  of  the  troublous  times  immediately  pre- 
ceding the  American  Revolution. 

The  dwelling  built  and  occupied  by  Sir 
Peter,  known  in  our  day  as  No.  i  Broadway, 
and  used  for  long  as  the  Washington  Hotel, 
was  made  an  object  of  interest  to  succeeding 
generations  by  the  circumstance  that  General 
Sir  William  Howe  and  Sir  Henry  Clinton 
used  it  as  headquarters  during  the  earlier 
years  of  the  war.  Here  were  held  the  confer- 
ences between  Sir  Henry  and  his  young  aide, 
Major  Andre,  in  which  were  arranged  the 
details  of  Andre's  mission  to  Arnold.  Under 
the  venerable  roof  he  passed  the  last  peaceful 
night  he  was  to  know  on  earth,  setting  out  on 


Johnson  Hall  3 

the   morrow   for  his   fatal    expedition   up   the 
river. 

Sir  Peter  Warren's  nephew,  William  John- 
son, although  but  twenty-three  years  of  age 
upon  his  arrival  in  the  New  World,  had  been 
desperately  in  love  with  a  fair  one  in  his  na- 
tive land,  suffering  such  grievous  torments 
from  the  cruelty  of  his  enslaver  that  he  for- 
swore her,  his  home,  and  his  country,  and 
fled  into  permanent  exile.  The  distemper  had 
abated  somewhat,  or  was  a  thing  apart  from 
the  workings  of  an  uncommonly  cool  and  sa- 
gacious brain,  by  the  time  he  closed  with  his 
uncle's  offer  to  become  his  agent  in  the  man- 
agement of  his  Mohawk  estate.  He  landed 
in  New  York  in  the  spring  of  1738.  In  the 
autumn  he  was  in  the  full  tide  of  farm-work, 
timbering,  and  country-storekeeping.  An  ad- 
vance of  .£200  per  annum  was  to  be  made  by 
the  wealthy  Baronet  to  his  young  partner  for 
the  first  three  years,  and  paid  off  afterward 
in  installments.  Money,  and  whatever  was 
needed  to  keep  up  the  stock  in  the  "  store,"  were 
sent  up  the  Hudson  and  Mohawk  from  New 
York.  This  city  was  the  quarter-deck  from 
which  Sir  Peter  issued  his  commands  to  his 
able  first  mate. 


4  More  Colonial  Homesteads 

In  1742,  there  was  much  talk  between  the 
two  of  skins  purchased  and  shipped  down  the 
river,  and  Sir  Peter  reiterates  an  admonition 
that  the  orchard  be  not  neglected,  and  that 
"  fruit-trees  of  the  best  kinds  "  be  set  out  re- 
gardless of  expense.  His  far-reaching  policy 
included  the  blossoming  of  the  wilderness  and 
a  just  return  to  it,  although  not  in  kind,  of 
the  wealth  the  kinsmen  were  drawing  from  it. 
Young  Johnson,  at  this  date,  "roughed  it"  as 
if  he  had  been  a  peasant  immigrant,  with  no 
rich  uncle  within  call.  He  took  his  grain  to 
mill  on  horseback,  riding  upon  the  sacks  fif- 
teen miles  to  Caughnawaga,  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  river,  bringing  back  bags  of  corn- 
meal  and  flour  for  store,  camp,  and  farm- 
hands. In  these  expeditions  he  had  cast  his 
eye  upon  an  eligible  site  for  a  saw-mill,  also 
across  the  river,  and  bought  it  on  his  own  re- 
sponsibility and  with  his  own  money.  He  had 
no  intention  of  building  a  dwelling-house  upon 
it, — or  so  he  assured  his  chief,  who,  apparently, 
had  heard  a  rumour  to  that  effect.  Yet  we  find 
Johnson,  in  1  743,  clearing  ground  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  saw-mill  for  a  spacious  house, 
and  hauling  to  the  eligible  site  so  many  loads 
of  stone,  timber,  and  pearlash  as  to  whet  the 


Johnson  Hall  5 

curiosity  of  his  white  neighbours  into  the  live- 
liest wonder  and  admiration. 

He  had  done  well  for  himself   in  the  five 
years  which  had  elapsed  since  he  turned  his 
back    upon    his    disdainful    Dulcinea   and  the 
green   shores   of    Erin.      Sir    Peter   Warren's 
estate  was  in  the  very  heart  of  the  Iroquois  and 
Mohawk    tribes,    then,    and    for    many    years 
thereafter,  the  friends  in  peace,  and  the  allies 
in  war,  of  the  English.     What  Captain  John 
Smith  had  hoped  to  do  and  to  become  in  Vir- 
ginia,—failing  by  reason  of  the  envy  of  his  col- 
leagues, the  distrust  of  the  London  Company, 
under  whose  orders  he  was,  and,  finally,  through 
the  accident  that  crippled  and  sent  him  back 
to    England,— William    Johnson   did  and  be- 
came  in  the  more  northern  province.      Irish 
wit,  the  light  heart,  quickness,  and  facility  of 
adaptation  to  environment  and  associates  char- 
acteristic of  his  countrymen  of  the  better  sort, 
were  equipments   he  brought  into  the  wilder- 
ness with   him.      He   joined  to  these   an   un- 
bending will,  resolute   ambition,  and  personal 
bravery  that  would  have  made  him  a  leader  of 
men  anywhere.     There  were  more  Dutch  than 
English    settlers    in    the  valley.      In  a    year's 
time    he  learned   enough   of   their   speech   to 


6  More  Colonial  Homesteads 

bandy  jokes  with  them  over  mugs  of  strong 
ale  and  tobacco-pipes,  and  to  outwit  them  in 
trading.  Within  two  years  he  could  act  as  inter- 
preter for  Dutch  boers  and  English  landhold- 
ers with  the  Indians,  and  in  these  negotiations 
held  the  balance  of  justice  with  so  firm  a  hand 
that  the  most  wary  sachems  were  imbued  with 
belief  in  his  integrity.  Here  was  one  pale- 
face who  would  neither  cheat  them  himself, 
nor  allow  others  to  cheat  them.  He  improved 
the  advantage  thus  gained  so  cleverly  that  be- 
fore the  first  rows  of  foundation-stones  were 
laid  for  Johnson  Hall  in  1744,  the  owner  and 
builder  had  more  influence  with  the  tribes  than 
any  other  white  man  within  an  area  of  hve 
hundred  miles.  In  the  winter's  hunting-parties 
for  moose  and  wolves  ;  in  trapping  for  otter 
and  beaver ;  about  the  council  fires ;  in  the 
wild  orgies  and  barbaric  feasts  followed  by 
shooting-matches,  races,  and  dances,  in  which 
picked  young  men  of  the  tribes  were  compet- 
itors,— Johnson  was  not  a  whit  behind  the 
most  notable  of  hunters  and  warriors.  He 
was  with,  and  of,  them.  He  might  outbar- 
gain Dutch,  Germans,  and  English.  With 
the  Indians  he  was  upright  and  generous  to  a 
proverb,  liked  and  trusted  by  all.      His  was  no 


Johnson  Hall  7 

ephemeral  popularity.  Thirty  years  after- 
ward, the  eulogium  spoken  by  a  Mohawk  sa- 
chem above  the  wampum -bound  grave  of 
the  friend  of  his  race — the  adopted  brother  of 
his  tribe  —  condensed  the  experience  of  all 
these  years  into  one  mournful  sentence  : 
"  Sir  William  Johnson  never  deceived  us." 
As  the  immediate  fruit  of  his  policy,  or  prin- 
ciples, his  was  the  first  choice  of  the  pelts 
brought  into  the  European  settlement  by  the 
Indians.  Had  he  wished  to  purchase  all,  he 
could  have  secured  a  monopoly  of  whatever 
was  available  to  the  white  traders.  He  vir- 
tually controlled  the  fish  market  of  the  regions 
skirting  the  river,  and  had  his  pick  of  such 
redskins  as  could  be  induced  to  work  in  the 
fields  in  summer,  and  at  logging  in  winter. 
While  he  lived  in  a  log-cabin,  larger,  but 
hardly  more  comfortable  than  a  wigwam,  any 
Iroquois  or  Mohawk  was  welcome  to  a  bounti- 
ful share  of  venison,  or  bear-meat,  hominy,  and 
whiskey.  The  host  ate  with  him  and  they 
smoked  together  afterward,  over  the  coals  or 
out-of-doors,  discussing  tribal  politics,  or  the 
growing  encroachments  of  the  guest's  hered- 
itary enemies,  the  Cherokees  and  Choctaws, 
upon    the    Iroquois    hunting-grounds    to    the 


8  More  Colonial  Homesteads 

south  of  the  Valley.  When  they  were  sleepy, 
both  men  rolled  themselves  up  in  their  blank- 
ets on  the  floor,  or  stretched  themselves 
upon  pallets  of  fox-  and  bearskin.  Disputes 
among  the  aborigines  were  referred  to  the 
wise  and  friendly  white  man,  and  no  enterprise 
of  note  was  undertaken  without  consultation 
with  him. 

When  growing  wealth  and  a  growing  family 
led  him  to  build,  besides  Johnson  Hall,  a  less 
ambitious  dwelling,  called  Johnson  Castle, 
some  miles  farther  up  the  river,  the  savage 
horde  was  still  free  to  come  and  go  as  will,  or 
convenience,  impelled  them.  Parkman  says 
that  Johnson  Hall  was  "  surrounded  by  cabins 
built  for  the  reception  of  the  Indians,  who  often 
came  in  crowds  to  visit  the  proprietor,  invading 
his  dwelling  at  all  unseasonable  hours,  loiter- 
ing in  the  doorways,  spreading  their  blankets 
in  the  passages,  and  infecting  the  air  with  the 
fumes  of  stale  tobacco." 

What  manner  of  housewife  and  woman  was 
she  who  could  submit  with  any  show  of  patience 
to  the  lawless  intrusion  of  uncouth  savages, 
and  the  attendant  nuisances  of  vermin,  filth, 
and  evil  odours  ? 

"  Begging  for  a  drink  of  raw  rum,  and  giving 


Johnson  Hall  9 

forth  a  strong  smell,  like  that  of  a  tame  bear, 
as  he  toasted  himself  by  the  fire," — thus  one 
writer  describes  a  specimen  visitor. 

To  be  consistent  with  his  adoption  of  Indian 
manners  and  usages,  and  to  cement  his  authority 
with  his  allies,  the  astute  trader-planter  should 
have  wedded  some  savage  maiden  and  filled  his 
lodge  with  a  dusky  race.  At  a  later  day  the 
policy  commended  by  France's  king,  urged  by 
him  upon  France's  colonists  in  America,  and 
approved  by  them  in  theory  and  practice, 
seemed  right  and  cunning  in  William  Johnson's 
sight,  as  we  shall  see. 

In  religion,  as  in  morals,  he  was  catholic 
and  eclectic,  and  a  law  unto  himself.  The 
fascinated  student  of  his  biography  cannot 
resist  the  conviction  that,  within  the  stalwart 
body  of  this  educated  backwoodsman,  lived 
two  natures  as  diverse  and  distinct,  the  one 
from  the  other,  as  the  fabled  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr. 
Hyde.  There  were  Dutch  and  German  Re- 
formed churches  up  and  down  the  river — one 
of  which,  "  Stone  Arabia,"  retains  name  and 
place  unto  this  day.  Each  had  its  attend- 
ance of  devout  communicants,  men  and  women 
who  lived  godly  and  virtuous  married  lives  in 
lonely  cabins   and   sparse  settlements   in   the 


to         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

clearings  they  had  made  in  the  primeval  forest. 
William  Johnson  was  on  neighbourly  terms 
with  them  all,  doing  many  a  kind  and  liberal 
turn  for  them,  as  occasion  offered  ;  subscribing 
money  to  build  houses  of  worship,  giving 
voluntarily  fifty  acres  for  a  glebe  farm  upon 
condition  that  a  parsonage  should  be  built  for 
the  Lutheran  minister,  and,  the  next  week, 
making  a  like  gift  to  the  Calvinistic  congrega- 
tion with  a  similar  proviso.  While  calling  him- 
self an  Episcopalian,  he  entertained  British 
priests  travelling  from  log-house  to  camp,  in 
ministry  upon  the  few  sheep  in.  the  wilderness 
that  owned  allegiance  to  the  Parent  Church. 
He  enjoyed  conversation  with  the  reverend 
fathers  ;  he  fed  them  with  the  fat  of  lambs  and  of 
beeves,  cheered  them  with  his  best  liquors, 
and  pressed  them,  with  friendly  violence,  to 
tarry  for  days  and  nights  in  an  abode  that 
reeked  with  the  fumes  of  raw  rum,  stale  tobacco, 
and  the  exhalations  of  unwashed  savages. 
While  he  had  not  had  the  university  training 
most  young  men  of  his  birth  and  class  enjoyed 
in  Great  Britain,  his  education  was  far  more 
thorough  than  is  generally  supposed  by  those 
familiar  with  his  manner  of  living,  and  the 
outlines  of  his  career.      He  received  and  read 


Johnson  Hall  n 

letters  written  in  French  and  Latin,  and  made 
descriptive  endorsements  of  the  contents  upon 
them  in  the  same  languages. 

When  he  cast  an  eye  of  favour  upon  a  buxom 
German  lass,  Catherine  Wissenberg  by  name, 
the  daughter  of  a  fellow  immigrant,  he  made  his 
courtship  brief.  Whether  his  comely  presence, 
his  reputed  wealth,  and  his  nimble  wits  and 
tongue  won  the  damsel's  consent,  or  whether, 
as  was  hinted,  the  negotiation  was  purely  com- 
mercial, and  her  father  profited  by  the  result, 
we  do  not  know.  It  is  certain  that  Catherine 
Wissenberg  became  the  mistress  of  the  stately 
new  mansion  on  the  river-slope  and  sharer  of 
the  master's  fortunes. 

Parkman,  in  his  delightful  history  of  The 
Conspiracy  of  Pontiac,  says  that  she  was  a 
Dutch  girl  whom,  in  justice  to  his  children, 
Johnson  married  upon  her  death-bed.  Stone's 
carefully  prepared  Life  and  Times  of  Sir  Wil- 
liam Johnson  strips  the  alliance  of  the  pictur- 
esque element  by  asserting  that  the  marriage 
was  in  good  and  regular  form  and  date,  and 
thus  recorded  in  the  Johnson  Bible.  The  in- 
troduction of  this  same  family  Bible  lends 
verity  to  the  latter  story,  and  a  smack  of  de- 
mure respectability  to  this  important  episode 


12         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

of  the  singular  life  that  entitles  it  to  a  place  on 
the  Dr.  Jekyll  side  of  the  page. 

In  birth  and  social  position  Mrs.  Johnson  was 
her  husband's  inferior,  and,  it  goes  without 
saying,  in  education  also.  She  was  gentle  of 
temper,  had  plenty  of  good  common  sense,  and 
was  sincerely  attached  to  her  handsome  spouse. 
Three  children  were  the  fruit  of  the  marriage  : 
John  (afterward  Sir  John),  Mary,  who,  in  due 
time,  married  Guy  Johnson,  her  cousin  and  the 
son  of  another  pioneer,  and  Ann,  or  Nancy, 
who  became  the  wife  of  Colonel  Daniel  Claus 
— a  name  that  declares  his  Dutch  extraction. 

Mrs.  Johnson  did  not  live  long  to  enjoy  the 
dignities  of  the  first  lady  in  the  Valley.  She 
died  early  in  the  year  1745.  In  his  will,  made 
almost  a  quarter-century  after  the  beginning  of 
his  widowerhood,  Johnson  refers  to  her  as  his 
"  beloved  wife  Catherine,"  and  directs  that  his 
remains  shall  be  laid  beside  hers.  In  view  of 
the  relations  which  succeeded  marital  respect- 
ability, we  are  inclined  to  consider  this  section 
of  his  testament  as  a  Jekyllish  figure  of  speech, 
although  the  tribute  to  the  amiable  and  dutiful 
matron  may  have  been  sincere. 

The  threatening  aspect  of  the  times  in  which 
he  lived  would  have  distracted  his  thoughts 


Johnson  Hall  13 

from  honest  and  deep  mourning.  The  political 
heavens  were  black  with  portents  of  storm.  To 
quote  Parkman  : 

"  With  few  and  slight  exceptions,  the  numerous  tribes 
of  the  Great  Lakes  and  the  Mississippi,  besides  a  host  of 
domiciliated  savages  in  Canada  itself,  stood  ready,  at 
the  bidding  of  the  French,  to  grind  their  tomahawks  and 
turn  loose  their  ravenous  war-parties  ;  while  the  British 
colonists  had  too  much  reason  to  fear  that  now  those 
tribes  which  seemed  most  friendly  to  their  cause,  and 
which  formed  the  sole  barrier  of  their  unprotected  bord- 
ers, might,  at  the  first  sound  of  the  war-whoop,  be  found 
in  arms  against  them." 

Even  the  Mohawks  and  Iroquois  living  on  the 
confines  of  Canada  were  gradually  won  over 
by  the  wily  French,  assisted  by  the  powerful 
influence  of  the  priesthood. 

Johnson,  up  to  this  time,  had  taken  little 
active  part  in  the  administration  of  public 
affairs.  He  was  too  busy  shipping  furs  to 
London,  and  flour  to  Halifax  and  the  West 
Indies,  farming  and  clearing  and  lumbering, 
embellishing  the  extensive  grounds  of  Johnson 
Hall  with  English  shrubbery,  setting,  in  the 
broad  front  of  the  mansion,  the  costly  windows 
with  "  diapered  panes,"  made  in,  and  imported 
from,  France  expressly  for  him,  and  other- 
wise forwarding  the  interests  of  a  fast-rising 


H         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

man  in  a  new  country, — to  mix  himself  up  with 
matters  which  he  thought  would  right  them- 
selves without  his  interference.  He  would 
seem  to  have  had  his  first  definite  indication 
that  he  might  have  a  serious  and  imminent  in- 
terest in  the  popular  tumults,  in  the  autumn 
after  Mrs.  Johnson's  decease.  An  intimate 
friend,  a  resident  of  Albany,  wrote  to  him 
from  that  place,  entreating  that  he  would  not 
think  of  passing  the  winter  at  Johnson  Hall, 
or,  as  it  was  otherwise  called,  "  Fort  Johnson." 

"  The  French  have  told  our  Indians  that 
they  will  have  you,  dead  or  alive,  because  you 
are  a  relation  of  Captain  Warren,  their  great 
adversary,"  was  the  reason  given  for  the 
friendly  warning. 

The  writer  went  on  to  represent  that  there 
was  room  in  his  own  home  for  his  menaced 
friend,  and  as  many  of  his  servants  as  he  cared 
to  bring.  As  no  mention  is  made  of  the 
motherless  children,  the  presumption  is  that 
they  were  already  in  Albany,  or  some  other 
safer  asylum  than  their  father's  house.  John- 
son declined  the  urgent  invitation  and  fortified 
the  Hall  with  what  our  historian  styles  the 
barriers  of  the  English  frontier.  He  knew  his 
Indians,  and  they  believed  in  him.     Through- 


Johnson  Hall  17 

out  the  winter  they  lurked  and  loitered  about, 
and  in,  the  house  on  the  hill,  apparently  as 
lazy  and  dull  as  hibernating  bears — in  reality 
alert  in  every  sense  for  the  protection  of  their 
patron. 

In  the  spring  his  scouts  corroborated  the 
news  from  Albany  that  the  French  at  Crown 
Point  meditated  an  attack  upon  the  nearest 
English  settlements.  He  had  his  material 
ready  when  the  request  came  from  army  head- 
quarters that  "  a  few  Mohawks  whom  he  knew 
to  be  trusty  "  might  be  sent  to  reconnoitre  the 
Valley.  Sixteen  picked  men  were  despatched 
upon  this  errand.  Their  report  of  the  extent 
of  hostile  preparations  aroused  Johnson  to  the 
consciousness  that  his  living  "barrier"  might 
be  insufficient  to  protect  his  property  from 
destruction,  however  well  they  might  play  the 
watch-dog  for  his  person.  He  wrote  to  Al- 
bany, asking  that  a  small  force  of  regular 
soldiery  be  sent  to  Johnson  Hall.  Among 
other  valuables  that  might  tempt  the  enemy, 
he  specified  eleven  thousand  bushels  of  wheat 
ready  for  the  mill.  The  white  settlers  all 
about  him  were  fleeing  for  their  lives  into 
forts  and  fortified  towns.  A  troop  of  thirty 
"  regulars "  was  placed  at    his  disposal,   and, 


1 8         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

reinforced  by  a  considerable  body  of  militia, 
composed  the  garrison  of  Johnson  Hall,  biv- 
ouacking in  lawn  and  gardens,  and  feasting 
at  the  master's  expense. 

Partly  to  show  his  unabated  confidence  in 
the  loyalty  of  his  Indian  allies,  somewhat  in- 
commoded now  by  the  influx  of  white  warriors, 
partly  to  strengthen  and  establish  his  influence 
with  them,  he  offered  himself  for  adoption  into 
the  Mohawk  tribe.  A  great  council  of  sachems 
and  braves  was  convened,  and  with  formalities 
many,  speeches  innumerable,  and  a  confusing 
passing  back  and  forth  of  wampum  belts  as 
tangible  punctuation  points  and  italic  dashes, 
he  was  made  a  Mohawk,  inside  and  out,  and 
proclaimed  a  chieftain,  with  all  the  rights,  pow- 
ers, and  immunities  pertaining  to  the  rank. 
"In  this  capacity,"  says  Stone,  "  he  assembled 
them  at  festivals  and  appointed  frequent  war- 
dances,  by  way  of  exciting  them  to  engage 
actively  in  the  war."  He  wore  blanket,  moc- 
casins, and  feathered  head-gear, — a  garb  that 
became  him  rarely, — spoke  their  dialect,  and 
deported  himself  in  all  things  as  if  born  to  the 
honours  conferred  upon  him  by  his  "  brothers." 
Many  of  the  chiefs  were  persuaded  by  him  to 
accept  the  Governor's  invitation  to  visit  him  at 


Johnson  Hall  19 

Albany  for  consideration  of  the  best  means  of 
ensuring  the  safety  of  the  colony.  The  younger 
braves  were  wrought  upon  by  argument  and 
flattery  to  pledge  themselves  to  support  the 
English  cause  in  the  event  of  active  hostilities 
between  the  English  and  French.  All  but 
three  of  the  Mohawk  and  Iroquois  sachems 
were,  by  these  means,  committed  to  the  side 
represented  to  them  by  their  newly  made  chief. 

In  1746,  Johnson  was  made  contractor  for 
the  trading-post  of  Oswego,  trammelled  in  pur- 
chase and  sale  only  by  the  stipulation  that  "  no 
higher  charges  be  made  in  time  of  war  than  it 
had  been  usual  to  pay  in  time  of  peace." 

He  had,  that  same  year,  a  welcome  visitor 
in  the  person  of  his  brother,  Captain  Warren 
Johnson,  of  the  Royal  Army.  He  brought 
from  Governor  Clinton  a  letter  addressed  to 
"  Colonel  William  Johnson,"  enjoining  him 
to  "  keep  up  the  Indians  to  their  promises  of 
keeping  out  scouts  to  watch  the  motions  of 
the  French,"  and  concluding  with  the  pleas- 
ant intimation,  "  I  have  recommended  you  to 
his  Majesty's  favour  through  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle." 

Neither  the  Governor's  favour  nor  the  pro- 
mise of  royal  patronage  put  money  into  the  new 


20         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Colonel's  purse.  He  told  the  Governor  plainly, 
in  1747,  that  he  was  "  like  to  be  ruined  for 
want  of  blankets,  linen,  paints,  guns,  cutlasses, 
etc.,"  which  were  not  to  be  had  in  Albany, — all, 
as  will  be  seen,  commodities  for  his  copper- 
coloured  allies.  The  date  of  the  letter  is 
March  18th,  and  a  touch  of  Irish  humour 
flashes  out  in  the  closing  paragraph  : 

"  We  kept  St.  Patrick's  Day  yesterday,  and 
this  day,  and  drank  your  health,  and  that  of 
all  friends  in  Albany,  with  so  many  other 
healths  that  I  can  scarce  write." 

In  May  he  renders  a  curious  and  blood-curd- 
ling report  of  prisoners  and  scalps,  brought 
to  Johnson  Hall  by  a  party  under  command 
of  Walter  Butler,  a  name  destined  to  become 
notorious  in  Revolutionary  annals.  Butler 
was  a  mere  youth  at  this  date,  and,  as  we  can 
but  see,  taking  a  novitiate  in  methods  of  war- 
fare which  stamped  the  family  with  infamy 
when  the  loyal  subject  of  King  George  be- 
came, with  no  change  of  principle  or  practice, 
the  bloodthirsty  Tory.  He  had  been  skirmish- 
ing in  the  vicinity  of  Crown  Point,  at  the  head 
of  a  mixed  band  of  whites  and  Indians,  and 
brought  back  his  prizes  to  the  Colonel  and 
chief. 


Johnson  Hall  21 

"  I  am  quite  pestered  every  day,"  writes 
Johnson  to  Clinton,  "with  parties  returning 
with  prisoners  and  scalps,  and  without  a  penny 
to  buy  them  with,  it  comes  very  hard  upon  me, 
and  displeasing  to  them." 

One  speculates,  in  standing  in  the  central 
hall  of  the  ancient  house,  in  what  array  the 
scalps  were  hung  against  the  walls,  and  if 
the  master  carried  his  conformity  to  Indian 
customs  to  the  length  of  wearing  a  fringe  of 
them  at  his  girdle.  "  Pestered  "  is  a  darkly 
significant  word  in  this  connection  and  one 
which  Mr.  Hyde  would  have  snarled  out  in 
like  circumstances.  The  rest  of  the  letter  is 
in  the  same  vein.  There  is  a  requisition  for 
"  blue  camlet,  red  shalloon,  good  lace,  and 
white  metal  buttons,  to  make  up  a  parcel  of 
coats  for  Seneca  chiefs."  Also  "  thirty  good 
castor  hats,  with  scallop  lace  for  them  all, — 
white  lace,  if  to  be  had,  if  not,  some  yellow 
with  it.  This,  I  assure  your  Excellency,  goes 
a  great  way  with  them." 

As  he  is  finishing  the  letter,  "another  party 
of  mine,  consisting  of  only  six  Mohawks,"  rend- 
ers a  tale  of  seven  prisoners  and  three  scalps, 
— "which  is  very  good  for  so  small  a  party." 

The  cool  complacency  of  the  comment,  and 


22         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

the  calm  and  certain  conviction  that  his  news 
will  not  displease  his  Excellency ,  belong  to 
that  day  and  generation.  Let  us  thank  God 
they  are  not  ours  ! 

His  house  was  "full  of  the  Five  Nations" 
as  he  penned  this  despatch  to  his  superior. 
"  Some  are  going  out  to-morrow  against  the 
French.  Others  go  for  news  which,  when 
furnished,  I  shall  let  your  Excellency  know." 

The  tenor  of  each  communication  shows 
that  his  fighting-blood  was  in  full  flow,  and 
that  his  ways  and  means  were  dictated  by  the 
aroused  savage  within  him.  Clinton  had  given 
him  his  head  in  a  letter  written  in  April. 

"  The  council  did  not  think  it  proper  to  put 
rewards  for  scalping  or  taking  poor  women  or 
children  prisoners,  in  the  bill  I  am  going  to 
pass,"  is  a  crafty  phrase  of  the  official  docu- 
ment. "  But  the  Assembly  has  assured  me 
the  money  shall  be  paid  when  it  so  happens, 
if  the  Indians  insist  upon  it." 

In  his  turn,  Governor  Clinton  assured  his 
complaisant  Assembly  that, 

"  whereas  it  had  formerly  been  difficult  to  obtain  a 
dozen  or  twenty  scouts,  Col.  Johnson  engaged  to  bring 
a  thousand  warriors  into  the  field  upon  any  reason- 
able notice.    Through  his  influence  the  chiefs  have  been 


Johnson  Hall 


23 


weaned  from  their  intimacy  with  the  French,  and  many 
distant  Indian  nations  are  now  courting  the  friendship  of 
the  English." 

In  the  month  of  February,  1748,  Colonel 
Johnson  was  put  in  command  of  the  Colonial 
forces  under 
arms  for  the 
defence  of  the 
English  fron- 
tiers. 

At  one  of  the 
regimental  mil 
itia  musters, — ■ 
called  by  our 
forefathers 
"trainingdays," 
— reviewed  by 
the  Colonel  in 
command,  h  i  s 
attention  and 
that  of  the  officers  grouped  with  him  wan- 
dered from  the  business  of  the  day  to  a 
"  side-show,"  as  diverting  as  it  was  unex- 
pected. Hundreds  of  spectators  stood  on  the 
outskirts  of  the  training-ground,  a  large  pro- 
portion being  women  and  children.  Conspicu- 
ous among  the  squaws  in  the  inner  circle  was 


COLONEL  JOHNSOM, 


24         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Mary,  otherwise  Molly,  Brant,  a  young  half- 
breed,  the  dashing  belle  of  her  dark-skinned 
coterie,  and  known  by  sight  to  most  of  the 
white  officers.  Her  step-father,  in  whose 
family  she  was  brought  up,  figures  in  Colonel 
Johnson's  letters  as  "  Nickus  Brant,"  "  Old 
Brant,"  and  "  Brant  of  Canajoharie."  John- 
son's home,  when  in  Canajoharie,  was  "at 
Brant's  house,"  and  the  more  than  amicable 
relations  between  the  two  men  were  manifested 
in  many  ways.  In  1758,  Johnson  records,  in 
his  Diary,  the  presentation  by  himself  of  a 
string  of  wampum  to  Brant  and  Paulus,  two 
important  sachems  of  the  Mohawks. 

Nobody  assumed  that  Old  Nickus  was  the 
father  of  Molly  and  her  brother  Joseph.  They 
took,  for  common  use,  the  name  of  their 
mother's  husband,  Barnet,  or  Bernard,  cor- 
rupted by  common  usage  to  Brant.  The 
mother  was  a  Mohawk  squaw.  Her  girl  and  boy 
were  half-breeds.  When  Joseph  became  a  war- 
rier  of  renown  under  the  title  of  Thayendane 
gea  ("  Two-sticks-of-wood-bound-together," — a 
symbol  of  strength),  an  effort  was  made  by 
his  tribe  to  prove  him  a  full-blooded  Indian, 
and  his  father  to  have  been  a  sachem  of  the 
Mohawks.      It  is  but  fair  to  state  that  Joseph 


Johnson  Hall  25 

Brant,  while  signing  both  Indian  and  English 
names  to  letters  and  treaties,  does  not  seem  to 
have  attempted  to  support  this  claim.  If  his 
mother  confided  to  him  the  secret  of  his  parent- 
age, he  kept  it  for  her,  and  for  himself.  Jared 
Sparks — than  whom  we  have  no  better  author- 
ity upon  Revolutionary  history — believed  the 
younger  of  the  half-breed  children,  Joseph,  to 
have  been  William  Johnson's  son.  Other  annal- 
ists of  less  note  held  the  same  opinion.  The 
hypothesis  draws  colour  and  plausibility  from 
Johnson's  marked  partiality  for  the  lad.  Al- 
though but  thirteen  years  old  when  the  battle 
of  Lake  George  was  fought  (1 755),  he  followed 
Colonel  Johnson  to  the  field,  and  had  there  his 
"  baptism  of  fire," — in  ruder  English,  his  first 
taste  of  blood.  He  was  educated  at  Johnson's 
expense  in  Moor  Charity  School,  afterward 
Dartmouth  College.  A  fellow  student  was  his 
young  nephew,  William  Johnson,  the  son  of 
Colonel  Johnson  and  Molly  Brant.  Brant's 
after-life  belongs  to  a  later  period  of  our 
story. 

Return  we  to  the  handsome  Indian  girl, 
laughing  in  the  front  rank  of  the  spectators  of 
the  parade,  brave  in  bright  blanket  and  flutter- 
ing ribbons,  and  shooting  smart  sallies  from  a 


26         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

ready  tongue  at  such  soldiers,  as  accosted  her 
in  passing.  A  mounted  officer  presently  rode 
up  closer  to  the  lookers-on  than  any  private 
had  dared  to  venture,  and  leaned  from  his 
saddle-bow  to  speak  to  her.  His  horse  was  a 
fine,  spirited  animal,  and  Molly  praised  him 
rapturously,  finally  begging  permission  to  ride 
him.  As  gaily  the  officer  bade  her  mount 
behind  him.  With  one  agile  spring,  the  girl 
was  upon  the  crupper,  and  clasped  the  rider's 
waist.  The  mettled  horse  reared,  then  dashed 
off  at  full  speed.  Round  and  round  the  parade- 
ground  they  flew,  the  astonished  officer  able 
to  do  nothing  except  keep  the  saddle  and  guide 
the  frantic  beast  into  the  line  of  the  impro- 
vised race-course.  The  blanket  had  dropped 
from  Molly's  shoulders  as  she  leaped  from 
the  ground  ;  her  black  hair  streamed  upon  the 
wind  ;  her  shining  eyes,  white  teeth,  and 
crimson  cheeks  transformed  the  swarthy  belle 
into  a  beauty.  Screams  of  laughter,  encourag- 
ing huzzas,  and  clapping  of  hands  followed  her 
flight.  When  the  discomfited  victim  of  the 
mad  escapade  at  last  regained  control  of  his 
horse  and  Molly  slipped  from  her  perch  as 
lightly  as  she  had  mounted,  the  first  person  to 
salute  and  congratulate  her  upon  her  grace  and 


Johnson  Hall  27 

dexterity  was  the  Colonel  of  the  regiment,  the 
great  man  of  the  Valley,  and,  as  he  made  her 
and  the  lookers-on  to  understand,  hencefor- 
ward her  most  obedient  servant. 

No  time  was  lost  in  preliminaries.  Molly 
Brant  became,  without  benefit  of  clergy  or  re- 
gard to  the  prejudices  of  society,  the  "  tribal 
wife  "  of  the  adopted  Mohawk,  and  retained 
the  position  until  Johnson's  death.  Mrs. 
Grant,  in  her  interesting  work,  An  American 
Lady,  launders  the  liaison  into  conventional 
decency  and  polish  : 

"  Becoming  a  widower  in  the  prime  of  life, 
he  [Johnson]  connected  himself  with  an  In- 
dian maiden,  daughter  of  a  sachem,  who  pos- 
sessed an  uncommonly  agreeable  person  and 
good  understanding." 

Molly  and  her  tribe  undoubtedly  considered 
the  connection  as  valid  as  if  law  had  sealed 
and  gospel  blessed  it.  It  served  to  rivet  the 
already  strong  bonds  by  which  Johnson  held 
them  to  his  and  to  the  English  interests. 
While  he  lived,  no  word  or  deed  of  his  tended 
to  cast  disrespect  upon  the  woman  who  reigned 
over  his  mighty  establishment  of  negro  and 
Indian  servants,  German  and  Dutch  tenants. 

After  he  became  a  Baronet-General,  living 


28-        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

in  a  style  befitting  his  rank  and  wealth,  Molly 
held  her  own  without  apparent  effort. 

"  Nothing  could  have  better  shown  how  powerful  Sir 
William  had  become,"  says  Harold  Frederic,1  "  and  how 
much  his  favour  was  to  be  courted,  than  the  fact  that 
ladies  of  quality  and  strict  propriety,  who  fancied  them- 
selves very  fine  folk  indeed, — the  De  Lanceys  and  Phil- 
lipses  and  the  like, — would  come  visiting  the  widower 
baro  ;et  in  his  Hall,  and  close  their  eyes  to  the  presence 
there  of  Miss  Molly  and  her  half-breed  children.  Sir 
William's  neighbours,  indeed,  overlooked  this  from  their 
love  of  the  man,  and  their  reliance  in  his  sense  and 
strength.  But  the  others — the  aristocrats — held  their 
tongues  from  fear  of  his  wrath,  and  of  his  influence  in 
London. 

"  He  would  suffer  none  of  them  to  markedly  avoid  or 
affront  the  Brant  squaw,  whom,  indeed,  they  had  often 
to  meet  as  an  associate  and  an  equal." 

Staid  British  matrons  from  over  the  sea, 
copper-sheathed  in  the  proprieties  of  wedded 
virtue,  accepted  the  hospitalities  of  Johnson 
Hall  upon  like  terms.  Lady  Susan  O'Brian, 
daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Ilchester,  with  her 
husband,  was  entertained  for  several  days  by 
Sir  William  in  1765.  The  titled  dame  pro- 
nounced "  his  housekeeper,  a  well-bred  and 
pleasant  lady,"  perfectly  aware,  all  the  while, 
what  were   her  relations  to   the  courtly  host, 

1  In  the  Valley,  by  Harold  Frederic. 


Johnson  Hall  29 

and  whose  were  the  children  who  called  him 
"  father,"  and  had,  apparently,  equal  rights 
with  the  acknowledged  heir,  John  Johnson, 
and  his  sisters.  Lord  Adam  Gordon,  a  Scotch 
peer,  was  domesticated  at  the  Hall  for  a  much 
longer  time  than  the  O'Brians,  and  when  he 
sailed  for  England  took  John  with  him,  "  to  try 
to  wear  off  the  rusticity  of  a  country  educa- 
tion," as  the  lad's  father  phrased  it. 

With  all  his  outward  show  of  affection  for 
his  black-browed  mistress,  and  the  tribute  of 
deference  he  exacted  for  her  from  high  and 
low,  the  other  self  of  this  dual-natured  poten- 
tate set  her  decidedly  aloof,  in  his  thoughts  and 
in  legal  documents,  from  the  station  a  lawful 
wife  would  have  taken  and  kept.  The  will, 
ordaining  that  he  should  be  buried  by  his  "  be- 
loved wife  Catherine,"  provides  for  mourning 
and  maintenance  for  "  my  housekeeper,  Mary 
Brant,"  and  scores  a  broad  line  of  demarcation 
between  "  my  dearly  beloved  son,  Sir  John 
Johnson,"  and  "  Peter,  my  natural  son  by 
Mary  Brant."  Also,  between  his  daughters, 
Ann  Claus  and  Mary  Johnson,  and  the  child- 
ren of  "  said  housekeeper,  Mary  Brant." 
There  was  never  any  blending  or  confusion  of 
boundary  lines  between  the  two  personalities 


30         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

in  the  single  body.  European  and  Mohawk, 
aristocrat  and  savage, — each  was  sharply  drawn 
and  definite.  Neither  infringed  upon  the 
other's  rights,  and  the  unities  of  the  queer 
double-action  life-drama  were  never  violated. 

In  the  outer  world  the  signs  of  the  times 
were  ominous  enough.  That  the  Iroquois  re- 
mained proof  against  the  blandishments  of  the 
wily  French,  backed  by  the  threats  of  the  In- 
dian allies  of  France,  throughout  the  disturb- 
ances of  i  747-49,  was  due  entirely  to  Johnson's 
influence.  "  Anyone  other  than  he  would 
have  failed,"  testifies  a  contemporary. 

"  On  one  day  he  is  found  ordering  from  London  lead 
for  the  roof  of  his  house  ;  despatching  a  load  of  goods 
to  Oswego  ;  bartering  with  the  Indians  for  furs,  and 
writing  to  Governor  Clinton  at  length  on  the  encroach- 
ments of  the  French,  doing  everything  with  neatness  and 
despatch.  At  the  same  time  he  superintended  the  mil- 
itia, attended  to  the  affairs  of  the  Six  Nations,  and,  as 
Ranger  of  the  woods  for  Albany  County,  kept  a  diligent 
watch  upon  those  who  were  disposed  to  cut  down  and 
carry  off  by  stealth  the  King's  timber." 

Envy  at  his  success,  joined  to  animosity 
against  Clinton,  moved  the  Assembly  at  Al- 
bany to  neglect  the  payment  of  the  Colony's 
debt  to  Johnson.  They  even  accused  him  of 
making    out  fraudulent    bills,   and  refused   to 


Johnson  Hall  31 

meet  his  demand  for  the  return  of  ^200  ad- 
vanced from  his  private  fortune  for  defence 
of  frontiers  and  treaties  with  the  Indians. 
Stung  to  the  quick  of  a  haughty  nature,  he 
resigned  his  position  as  Superintendent  of  In- 
dian Affairs,  at  the  same  time  sending  word  to 
the  tribes  that  his  interest  in  all  that  concerned 
them  would  remain  unabated.  His  resolution 
to  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  public  busi- 
ness was  opposed  strenuously  by  the  Indians. 

"  One  half  of  Colonel  Johnson  belongs  to 
your  Excellency,  the  other  half  to  us,"  was 
the  wording  of  a  petition  sent  by  a  council  of 
braves  to  the  Governor.  "  We  all  lived  hap- 
pily while  we  were  under  his  management. 
We  love  him.  He  is,  and  has  always  been, 
our  good  and  trusty  friend." 

After  the  victory  of  Lake  George,  Colonel 
Johnson  was  created  a  Baronet  and  received  a 
vote  of  thanks  from  Parliament,  with  a  gift 
°f  ,£5000-  Johnstown  was  founded  by  him 
in  1760.  He  was  the  active  patron  of  an 
Indian  Mission  School  at  Stockbridge,  also 
of  one  established  in  Albany  in  1753,  and  was 
the  father  of  that  at  Lebanon  which  grew  mto 
Dartmouth  College.  He  built  an  Episcopal 
church   at   Schenectady,   a   Masonic   lodge   at 


32         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Johnson  Hall,  and,  the  war  being  over,  had 
leisure  to  superintend  the  erection  of  two 
stately  stone  houses  for  his  daughters,  his  gifts 
to  them,  together  with  640  acres  of  ground 
apiece. 

As  years  gathered  upon  him,  his  desire  in- 
creased to  educate  and  Christianise  the  race  to 
which  M  one  half  of  him  "  belonged  by  adoption. 
Upon  this  and  other  benevolent  schemes  he 
wrought  as  one  who  felt  that  the  time  for  labour 
was  brief.  He  had  cause  for  the  premonition. 
An  old  wound,  received  at  Lake  George, 
troubled  him  sorely.  By  the  advice  of  his 
redskin  friends,  he  visited  Saratoga,  to  test 
the  curative  properties  of  waters  until  then  un- 
known to  the  whites.  When  his  son  John, 
who  had  been  knighted  (for  his  father's  sake) 
in  England,  brought  a  New  York  bride  home 
to  the  Hall,  she  was  received  by  her  august 
father-in-law  with  all  the  state  and  cordiality 
due  to  her  position  as  the  wife  of  his  heir  and 
the  prospective  queen  of  the  fair  domain.  For 
some  days  the  Baronet  played  again,  and  for 
the  last  time,  the  courtly  lord  of  the  manor  to 
the  throng  of  guests  from  other  mansions,  for 
fifty  miles  up  and  down  the  Mohawk  and  the 
Hudson,  invited   to  welcome    the  bridal  pair. 


Johnson  Hall  35 

Satin-shod  feet  skimmed  the  oaken  floors  ;  the 
thick  walls  echoed  all  day  long  and  far  into 
the  night  with  the  clamour  of  merry  voices  ; 
there  were  feasting  and  dancing  and  song, 
and  much  exchange  of  curtsies  and  bows  and 
fine  speeches,  and  as  little  apparent  concern 
on  account  of  the  impending  quarrel  between 
the  mother  country  and  colonies  as  apprehen- 
sion as  to  the  cause  of  the  ashy  pallor  which 
had  supplanted  bronze  and  glow  in  the  mas- 
ter's face. 

Attended  by  a  faithful  body-servant,  he  set 
of!  for  New  London  at  the  end  of  a  week,  in 
the  hope  of  invigoration  from  the  sea-air  and 
sea-bathing,  leaving  the  young  couple  in  charge 
of  the  Hall  during  his  absence. 

Gradually  one  active  duty  after  another  was 
demitted,  Sir  William  spending  much  time  in 
his  library,  reading  books  he  had,  at  last,  leis- 
ure to  study,  and  writing  at  length  to  the  Gov- 
ernor of  Virginia  of  Indian  manners,  customs, 
traditions,  and  history. 

True  to  his  pledges  to  his  tribe,  he  emerged 
from  his  semi-seclusion  in  July,  1774,  to  pre- 
side over  a  congress  of  six  hundred  Indians  as- 
sembled to  confer  with  him  upon  divers  and 
vital  affairs,  big  with  fate  in  the  eyes  of  the  Six 


36         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Nations.  The  gathering  was  in  the  grounds 
of  Johnson  Hall ;  the  delegates  were  fed  from 
the  Hall  kitchen  ;  the  floors  of  rooms,  halls, 
and  porches  were  covered  at  night  with 
blankets,  as  was  the  turf  of  lawn  and  grove. 
Sir  William  occupied  the  chief  seat  of  honour 
in  the  conclave  of  Saturday,  July  9.  The 
peculiar  pallor  that  betrayed  the  ravages  of 
the  mysterious  and  subtle  disease  preying 
upon  his  vitals,  and  the  shrunken  outlines  of 
the  once  powerful  figure  were  all  the  indices 
of  failing  physical  strength  his  indomitable 
will  suffered  to  be  seen.  Wrapped  in  the  scarlet 
blanket  trimmed  with  gold  lace,  dear  to  the 
barbaric  taste  of  his  congeners,  he  sat  bolt  up- 
right, his  features  set  in  stern  gravity  becom- 
ing a  sachem,  and  hearkened  patiently  to  the 
long-drawn-out  details  of  the  wrongs  the  tribes 
had  endured  at  the  hands  of  their  nominal 
friends,  the  English.  The  boundaries  of  their 
territories  were  invaded  by  squatters  ;  their 
hunting-grounds  were  ranged  over  by  lawless 
furriers  and  trappers  ;  the  venders  of  fire-water 
brought  the  deadly  thing  to  the  very  doors  of 
their  wigwams. 

The  sun  was  nearinof  the  zenith  when   the 
tale  began.      It  was  not  far  from  the  western 


Johnson  Hall  37 

hills  when  the  last  orator  ceased  speaking. 
The  presiding  chief  reminded  them  that  the 
day  was  far  spent,  and  that  the  morrow  would 
be  the  Sabbath,  on  which  their  white  brothers 
did  no  work.  On  Monday  they  should  have 
their  answer  from  his  lips — the  lips  that  had 
never  lied  to  them. 

Johnstown  was  now  a  village  of  eighty  fam- 
ilies, with  shops  and  dwellings  built  with  lumber 
from  Johnson's  saw-mills,  and  pearlash  from 
his  factories.  In  the  centre  of  the  town,  named 
for  his  oldest  son,  stood  the  Episcopal  church, 
a  gift  to  the  parish  from  the  founder  of  the 
place.  We  wish  we  knew  whether  he  sat  in 
the  Johnson  pew  that  Sunday,  or  sought  recup- 
eration for  his  waning  forces  in  such  rest  and 
quiet  as  were  attainable  in  the  solitude  of  his 
library,  with  six  hundred  savages  encamped 
under  the  windows. 

He  began  his  oration  to  them  at  ten  o'clock 
Monday  morning,  standing,  uncovered,  under 
the  July  sky.  From  the  preamble,  his  tone  was 
conciliatory ;  sometimes  it  was  pleading.  He 
assured  the  malcontents  that  the  outrages  they 
resented,  and  with  reason,  were  not  the  act  of 
the  government,  but  of  lawless  individuals.  He 
promised    redress   in   the   name  of   King  and 


38         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Governor  ;  recapitulated  past  benefits  received 
from  both  of  these ;  counselled  charity  of 
judgment  and  moderation  in  action.  He  had 
never  been  more  eloquent,  never  more  nearly 
sublime  than  in  this,  the  final  union  of  the 
finest  type  of  Indian  and  of  the  upright  white 
citizen  of  the  New  World.  He  was  the  warrior 
in  every  inch  of  his  lofty  stature,  quivering 
with  energy  in  the  impassioned  periods  that 
acknowledged  the  red  man's  wrongs  and  main- 
tained the  red  man's  rights.  He  was  no  less 
the  loyal  subject  of  King  George  in  the  calm 
recital  of  what  the  parent  government  had 
done  for  its  allies,  and  solemn  pledges  for  the 
future. 

He  spoke  for  two  hours.  The  day  was 
fiercely  hot.  When  he  would  have  resumed 
his  seat,  he  staggered  and  reeled  backward. 
His  servants  rushed  forward  and  carried  him 
into  the  library.  An  express  messenger  leaped 
upon  his  horse  and  galloped  off  madly  for  Sir 
John  Johnson,  who  was  at  his  own  home,  nine 
miles  away,  thankful,  we  make  no  doubt,  to 
escape  the  assembling  of  the  tribes.  The  son 
rode  a  blooded  hunter  ei^rht  miles  in  fifteen 
minutes,  the  animal  falling  dead  under  him 
three-quarters  of  a  mile  from  Johnson   Hall. 


Johnson  Hall  39 

Leaving  him  in  the  road,  Sir  John  procured 
another  horse  and  dashed  on.  His  father  still 
lay  in  the  library,  supported  by  his  trusty 
body-servant.  The  son  fell  upon  his  knees  at 
his  side,  and  poured  a  flood  of  anguished  ques- 
tions into  the  dulled  ear.  There  was  no  an- 
swer, and  no  token  of  recognition.  In  less 
than  ten  minutes  the  last  breath  was  drawn. 

"  He  died  of  a  suffocation,"  wrote  Guy 
Johnson  to  the  'Earl  of  Dartmouth.  The  re- 
port of  the  sorrowing  Council  at  Albany  said, 
"a  fit  of  some  kind."  He  had  been  subject 
for  many  months  to  "a  sense  of  compressure 
and  tightness  across  the  stomach,"  diagnosed 
by  his  physician  as  u  stoppage  of  the  gall-duct." 
Whatever  might  have  been  the  malady,  he  had 
battled  with  it  long  and  valiantly  ;  he  died 
with  his  harness  on,  as  sachem  and  Anglo- 
Saxon  should. 

Two  thousand  whites  attended  the  funeral, 
and  "  of  Indians  a  great  multitude,  who  be- 
haved with  the  greatest  decorum  and  exhibited 
the  most  lively  marks  of  a  real  sorrow."  At 
their  earnest  instance  they  were  allowed  to  per- 
form their  own  ceremonies  over  the  remains 
when  the  Christian  services  were  concluded. 
A  double  belt  of  wampum  was  laid  upon  the 


4-o         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

body  ;  six  rows  of  the  same  were  bound  about 
the  grave.  Each  was  deposited  as  the 
"Amen"  of  a  panegyric  upon  the  virtues  and 
deeds  of  the  deceased  chieftain.  The  preg- 
nant sentence  I  have  already  quoted  summed 
up  the  body  and  soul  of  the  testimony  : 
"  Sir  William  Johnson  never  deceived  us!' 
Thus  lived  and  thus  died,  in  his  sixtieth 
year,  the  best  friend  the  North  American  In- 
dian has  ever  had,  William  Penn  not  excepted. 


II 


JOHNSON  HALL,  JOHNSTOWN,   NEW  YORK 

( Concluded ) 

THE    progress    of    Sir    William    Johnson's 
mortal    malady   was   accelerated    by   his 
grief  at   the    rupture  between   the    American 
Colonies  and  the  Mother  Country. 
Parkman  says  : 

"  He  stood  wavering  in  an  agony  of  indecision, 
divided  between  his  loyalty  to  the  sovereign  who  was 
the  source  of  all  his  honours,  and  his  reluctance  to  be- 
come the  agent  of  a  murderous  Indian  warfare  against 
his  countrymen  and  friends.  His  resolution  was  never 
taken.  He  was  hurried  to  his  grave  by  mental  distress, 
or,  as  many  believed,  by  the  act  of  his  own  hand." 

Dismissing  the  latter  hypothesis  with  the 
remark  that  there  was  nothing  in  the  incidents 
of  the  death-scene,  as  related  in  our  preceding 
chapter,  to  warrant  the  suspicion  of  suicide, 
we  cannot  gainsay  the  evidence  that  the  inde- 

41 


42         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

cision — a  novelty  to  him  in  any  circumstances 
— was  a  veritable  agony.  At  one  and  the 
same  time  we  find  him  writing  letters  con- 
demnatory of  the  Stamp  Act,  and  exhorting 
his  Indian  allies — "  Whatever  may  happen, 
you  must  not  be  shaken  out  of  your  shoes  in 
your  allegiance  to  your  King."  Joseph  Brant 
believed  that  he  was  following  up  the  task  his 
great  patron  had  laid  down  at  the  grave's 
mouth,  when  he  declared  that  he  "  joined  the 
Royal  army  purely  on  account  of  my  fore- 
fathers' engagements  with  the  King."  The 
Rev.  Dr.  Wheelock,  Brant's  preceptor  at  the 
Moor  Charity  School,  was  deputed  to  remon- 
strate with  him  upon  his  espousal  of  the  Tory- 
cause,  and  received  a  reply  as  suave,  yet  as  strin- 
gent, as  Sir  William  himself  could  have  framed  : 

"  I  can  never  forget,  dear  Sir,  your  prayers 
and  your  precepts.  You  taught  me  to  fear 
God  and  to  honour  the  King  !  " 

Sir  John  Johnson  succeeded  to  his  father's 
title  and  the  bulk  of  his  estates  ;  Guy  Johnson, 
as  Superintendent  of  Indian  Affairs.  Joseph 
Brant  was  Guy  Johnson's  secretary.  Colonel 
John  Butler  and  his  son  Walter  were  among 
the  Johnsons'  nearest  neighbours  and  closest 
friends.     In  all   the  disrupted  Colonies  there 


JOSEPH  BRANT. 
(from  original  PAINTING  at  van  cortlandt  manor-house,     the  scarf  belonged  to 

BRANT    AND    WAS    GIVEN    BY    HIM    TO   JAMES    CALDWELL,    ESQ.,    OF   ALBANY.) 


43 


Johnson  Hall  45 

was  no  hotter  bed  of  toryism  than  Johnson 
Hall  became  in  less  than  a  year  from  the 
founder's  death.  In  1775,  Guy  Johnson,  ac- 
companied by  his  secretary  and  spokesman, 
made  a  formal  progress  from  tribe  to  tribe  of 
friendly  Indians  to  confirm  them  in  their 
allegiance  to  the  Crown.  Brant,  who  had,  in 
his  earlier,  youth,  zealously  "  endeavoured  to 
teach  his  poor  brethren  the  things  of  God  "  ; 
who  had  assisted  an  English  divine  in  the 
preparation  of  an  Indian  prayer-book,  had 
help  translate  into  the  Indian  tongue  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles,  and  a  History  of  the  Bible; 
the  humble  communicant  in  the  Johnstown 
Episcopal  Church, — harangued  his  race  upon 
the  imperative  duty  of  resisting  treason  to  the 
bloody  death,  adjuring  them  by  the  memory 
of  his  benefactor  and  theirs  to  join  the  Scotch 
colonists  and  the  tenantry  of  Johnson  Hall 
in  the  holy  purpose  of  giving  the  King  his 
own  again. 

Sir  John  fortified  the  stone  house,  garrisoned 
it  with  the  white  reserve,  and  surrounded  it 
with  the  living  "  barriers  "  his  father  had  cast 
about  him  for  protection  against  the  French. 
Then  he  awaited  the  results  of  his  determined 
attitude. 


46         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

On  January  19,  1776,  the  fort  was  surprised 
by  a  body  of  rebels — still  so  called — under  Gen- 
eral Schuyler  ;  the  garrison  was  disarmed  and 
disbanded,  and  Sir  John  paroled.  In  May  of 
the  next  year  news  reached  Schuyler's  head- 
quarters that  the  paroled  man  was  in  corre- 
spondence with  the  British  in  Canada,  sending 
out  and  receiving  spies,  accumulating  ammun- 
ition in  and  near  the  Hall,  and  inciting  the 
Mohawks  to  a  massacre  of  the  Valley  people. 
An  order  was  issued  for  his  arrest.  He  heard 
of  it  in  season  to  escape  with  a  few  retainers 
to  Canada.  Before  his  flight  he  buried  an 
iron  chest  containing  family  plate  in  the  gar- 
den, another,  filled  with  money  and  valuable 
papers,  in  the  cellar,  hiding-places  known  to 
none  of  those  left  behind  except  Lady  John- 
son. 

She  was  living  in  Albany  with  her  own  re- 
latives when  Lafayette  visited  Johnson  Hall  in 
1778.  Once  more  the  outlying  slopes  about 
the  stone  house  were  covered  with  Indians, 
and  the  resources  of  the  establishment  were 
taxed  to  the  utmost  to  provide  for  their  enter- 
tainment. Five  out  of  the  Six  Nations  were 
represented  in  the  Council  attended  and 
addressed  by  the  titled  Frenchman. 


Johnson  Hall  47 

Joseph  Brant  convened  a  very  different  as- 
sembly of  his  countrymen  in  the  neighbour- 
hood early  in  the  year  1780.  He  was  then  a 
"  likely  fellow  of  fierce  aspect,  tall  and  rather 
spare,"  gorgeously  arrayed  in  a  short  green 
coat,  laced  round  hat,  leggings  and  breeches 
of  blue  cloth.  His  moccasins  were  embroid- 
ered with  beads,  his  blue  cloth  blanket  was 
carefully  draped  so  as  to  make  the  most  of  his 
glittering  epaulets.  His  name  was  now  a 
word  of  terror  throughout  the  land ;  his  fellow 
marauders  were  the  Butlers  and  William  John- 
son (the  son  of  his  sister,  Mary  Brant,  and  Sir 
William  Johnson),  Colonel  Guy  Johnson  and 
Colonel  Daniel  Claus,  the  husband  of  Nancy 
Johnson.  Molly  Brant  had  lived,  since  Sir 
William's  death,  at 'one  of  the  upper  Mohawk 
Castles,  with  her  younger  children.  Tradition 
describes  her  as  visiting  the  Hall,  once  her 
home,  when  especially  daring  expeditions  were 
under  discussion,  sitting,  as  darkly  handsome 
and  as  fierce  as  a  panther,  at  the  council-table, 
and  fearlessly  putting  into  words  the  project 
of  devastating  the  beautiful  Valley  with  fire, 
bullet,  and  tomahawk.  She  had  secret  means 
of  communication  with  her  brother  wherever 
he  was,  giving  him  much  valuable  information 


48         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

as  to  the  weak  points  in  the  defences  of  the 
Americans,  and  the  movements  of  their  forces. 
It  was  suspected  that  she  was  one  of  the 
few  dwellers  in  the  Valley  who  was  not  sur- 
prised when  on  the  night  of  May  21,  1780,  a 
horde  of  three  hundred  whites — British  and 
Tories — and  two  hundred  Indians  fell  like  a 
pack  of  hell-hounds  upon  the  peaceful  neigh- 
bourhood in  which  John  Johnson  was  born 
and  brought  up.  No  mercy  was  shown  to 
age,  sex,  or  former  friendships.  Killing,  scalp- 
ing, and  burning  as  they  went,  the  invaders 
pushed  their  murderous  way  up  to  the  doors 
of  Johnson  Hall,  put  the  few  inmates  to  flight, 
and  occupied  the  house  and  grounds.  No 
time  was  to  be  lost.  The  blazing  houses  and 
barns  would  tell  the  story  of  that  night's  work 
for  many  miles  up  and  down  the  river,  and  Sir 
John  had  known  something  of  the  colonists  in 
such  circumstances — "  the  rude,  unlettered, 
great-souled  yeomen  of  the  Mohawk  Valley,  who 
braved  death  at  Oriskany  that  Congress  and 
the  free  Colonies  might  be  free."  In  hot  haste 
he  unearthed  the  treasure  from  cellar  and 
garden  ;  forty  knapsacks  full  of  booty  were  laid 
upon  as  many  soldiers'  shoulders,  and  the  bloody 
crew  departed  as  swiftly  as  they  had  come. 


Johnson  Hall  49 

"He  might  have  recovered  his  plate,"  says 
Stone,  dryly  and  sorrowfully,  "without  light- 
ing up  his  path  by  conflagration  of  neighbours' 
houses,  or  staining  his  skirts  with  innocent 
blood." 

Sir  John's  raid  upon  his  homestead  and  the 
vicinity  was  followed  in  less  than  a  month  by 
Brant's  as  sudden  descent  upon  Canajoharie, 
fifteen  miles  away.  All  the  inhabitants  who 
were  not  killed  were  carried  off  prisoners ; 
towns  and  forts  were  burned.  From  the  porch 
of  Johnson  Hall  and  the  fields  about  Johns- 
town, groups  of  terrified  men  and  women 
watched  the  rise  and  flare  of  the  cruel  flames 
against  the  sky,  and  guessed  truly  by  whose 
orders  they  were  kindled. 

The  town,  which  is,  to  this  day,  a  memorial 
of  the  Baronet-General's  fondness  for  his  son 
and  heir,  was  better  prepared  to  repel  inva- 
sion in  1 78 1.  Taught  wariness  by  adversity, 
the  stout-hearted  burghers  and  boers  stood 
ready  and  undismayed  to  receive  the  mixed 
force  of  four  hundred  whites  and  half  as  many 
Indians,  that  hurled  themselves  upon  Johns- 
town, led  by  the  Butlers,  father  and  son. 

A  bloody  fight  ensued.  Instead  of  making 
Johnson  Hall  their  headquarters  as  they  had 


50         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

hoped  to  do,  the  attacking  party  was  beaten 
back  with  heavy  losses.  Walter  Butler  was 
shot  and  scalped  in  the  retreat  by  an  Oneida 
chief.  His  violent  dealings  had  returned  upon 
his  own  head.  In  connection  with  this  ex- 
pedition Brant  had  said,  when  upbraided  with 
the  cruelties  committed  by  the  invaders  : 

"  /do  not  make  war  upon  women  and  child- 
ren !  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  I  have  those 
engaged  with  me  who  are  more  savage  than 
the  savages  themselves " — and  named  the 
Butlers. 

The  story  goes  that  the  Oneida  who  killed 
Walter  Butler  had  aided  the  settlers  in  the 
abortive  attempt  to  save  their  homes  and 
families  from  the  Cherry  Valley  massacre 
mentioned  a  while  ago.  When  the  wounded 
white  captain  cried  for  "  quarter,"  the  Oneida 
yelled,  "  I  give  you  Cherry  Valley  quarter !  " 
and  buried  his  tomahawk  in  the  wretched 
man's  brain.  Such  was  the  abhorrence  felt  by 
the  Indian  allies  of  the  .American  forces  for 
the  slain  Tory  that  his  body  was  left  unburied 
where  it  lay,  to  be  devoured  by  wild  beasts 
and  carnivorous  birds,  on  the  bank  of  a  stream 
known  from  that  bloody  day  as  "  Butler's 
Ford." 


Johnson  Hall  51 

The.  Butler  homestead  is  still  standing,  a 
few  miles  from  Johnson  Hall. 

Sir  John  Johnson  had  left  behind  him,  in  his 
first  hurried  flight  to  Canada,  the  Family  Bible, 
containing  the  record  of  his  parents'  marriage. 
As  no  other  documentary  proof  of  it  was  extant 
the  act  was  culpably  careless  if  he  valued  his 
birthright  as  a  legitimate  son.  The  book  found 
its  way  to  the  hands  of  an  Albany  citizen,  and 
was  by  him  restored  to  the  rightful  owner.  At 
the  conclusion  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  Sir 
John  went  to  England  and  remained  there  for 
some  years,  returning  to  Canada  in  1785. 
There,  in  acknowledgment  of  the  services  he 
had  rendered  the  Royal  cause  in  the  struggle 
with  the  rebellious  Colonies,  he  was  made 
Superintendent  of  Indian  Affairs  in  America 
and  received  valuable  grants  of  Canadian  lands. 
He  died  at  the  age  of  eighty-eight,  in  Mon- 
treal, in  the  year  1830.  His  son  and  successor 
was  Sir  Adam  Gordon  Johnson.  Their  de- 
scendants are  numerous,  most  of  them  living 
in  Canada. 

Other  of  Sir  William  Johnson's  descendants 
intermarried  with  prominent  New  York  families. 

Johnson  Hall,  with  the  large  estate  surround- 
ing  it,   being  confiscated   by  the  Continental 


52          More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Government,  was  sold  to  James  Caldwell,  Esq., 
of  Albany,  for  $30,000,  "  in  public  securities." 
Within  a  week  from  the  day  of  purchase  he 
sold  it  in  his  turn,  and  for  hard  cash,  for  $7,000, 
clearing  a  handsome  sum  by  the  operation. 
The  place  changed  hands  four  times  in  the  ten 
years  lying  between  1  785  and  1  795. 

In  1807  Mr.  Eleazar  Wells  was  married  to 
Miss  Aken  in  the  drawing-room  of  Johnson 
Hall.  The  mansion  had  been  so  well  cared 
for  that  the  paint  and  paper  of  this  apartment 
were  the  same  as  in  Sir  William's  time  and  in 
excellent  preservation.  Mr.  Wells  became  the 
owner  of  the  place  in  1829.  It  is  now  the 
property  of  his  widowed  daughter-in-law,  Mrs. 
John  E.  Wells,  and  retains  the  reputation  for 
large-hearted  hospitality  established  and  main- 
tained by  the  founder. 

Lossing  says  of  it  in  T848,  "It  is  the  only 
baronial  hall  in  the  United  States."  But  for 
the  modernising  touches  visible  in  the  bay- 
windows  and  the  wing  at  the  beholder's  right, 
as  he  faces  the  ancient  building,  the  main 
body  of  the  Hall  is  unaltered.  It  is  of  wood, 
the  massive  clapboards  laid  on  to  resemble 
stone  blocks.  The  front  elevation  is  forty  feet 
in  width,   and  the  depth   is  sixty  feet.     Two 


Johnson  Hall  55 

stone  blockhouses,  with  loopholes  under  the 
eaves,  flanked  the  mansion  as  erected  by  Sir 
William,  for  nearly  a  century  after  his  decease. 
That  on  the  right  was  burned  some  years  ago. 
These  "  forts  "  were  connected  with  the  man- 
sion by  tunnelled  passages.  A  central  hall, 
fifteen  feet  wide,  cuts  the  dwelling  in  two,  run- 
ning from  front  to  back  doors.  The  broad 
staircase  is  fine.  After  the  manner  of  their 
English  forbears,  the  colonists  made  much  of 
stairways,  sometimes  to  the  extent  of  cramping 
living-rooms  to  give  sweep  to  the  ascent,  and 
breadth  to  landings..  The  mahogany  balus- 
trades, imported  by  Sir  William  Johnson,  are 
in  place,  but  the  polished  rail  is  hacked,  as 
with  a  hatchet,  at  intervals  of  ten  or  twelve 
inches,  all  the  way  down.  The  tradition, 
which  has  never  been  doubted,  of  the  mutila- 
tion is  that  it  was  done  by  Brant  in  1777,  the 
date  of  Sir  John  Johnson's  precipitate  departure 
from  the  home  of  his  father  to  escape  the  con- 
sequences of  his  double  dealing  with  General 
Schuyler,  who  had  paroled  him.  In  view  of 
the  strong  probability  that  the  deserted  house 
might  be  entered,  plundered,  and  fired  by  some 
wandering  band  of  Indians,  the  half-breed 
leader  left  upon  the  wood  hasty  hieroglyphics 


56  .       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

which  they  would  understand  and  respect.  The 
roof  reared  by  the  patron  who  had  filled  a 
father's  place  to  him, — whether  or  not  he  had 
a  natural  right  to  the  office, — must  be  spared 
for  that  patron's  sake. 

We  cannot  but  view  the  rude  indentations 
reverently.  With  mute  eloquence  they  awaken 
thoughts  of  the  mark  left  "  upon  the  lintels 
and  the  two  side-posts  "  of  the  houses  to  be 
spared  by  the  destroying  angel  on  the  Pass- 
over night.  Nothing  we  have  seen  in  any 
other  Colonial  homestead  appeals  more  strongly 
to  heart  and  imagination  than  these  tokens  of 
love  and  gratitude,  stronger  than  death,  and 
of  the  authority  exercised  by  the  educated 
savage  over  his  fierce  followers. 

The  rooms  are  large  and  lofty  and  wain- 
scoted with  native  woods,  rich  with  the  dyes 
of  a  hundred  and  fifty  years.  The  library,  in 
which  Sir  William  drew  his  last  breath,  is  now 
used  as  a  bedroom. 

The  late  General  Thomas  Hillhouse  was 
wont  to  say  that  "  Sir  William  Johnson  was 
the  greatest  Proconsul  the  English  ever  had 
in  the  American  Colonies,  and  that  if  he  had 
lived,  the  entire  course  of  the  Revolution 
might — would  probably  have  been  changed." 


Johnson  Hall  57 

The  stamp  of  his  potent  personality  lingers 
upon  the  neighbourhood  he  rescued  from  the 
wilderness.  Tales  of  a  life  without  parallel  in 
the  history  of  our  country  are  circulated  in 
Johnstown  and  Fonda  and  Caughnawaga,  as 
of  one  who  died  but  yesterday.  Some  are 
grave  ;  some  are  comic ;  many  are  unquestion- 
ably myths  ;  all  are  interesting.  We  may  dis- 
credit the  story,  seriously  retailed  by  Lossing, 
that  Sir  William  was  the  father  of  a  hundred 
children.  Presumably,  although  our  delightful 
gossip  does  not  state  it  in  so  many  words, 
ninety-odd  were  half-breeds. 

We  incline  a  listening  ear  to  the  account  of  the 
seclusion  in  which  Mary  and  "  Nancy  "  John- 
son were  brought  up  after  their  mother's  death. 
According  to  this,  the  two  girls  were  educated 
by  the  widow  of  an  English  officer,  a  gentle- 
woman who  had  been  Mrs.  Johnson's  intimate 
friend.  She  lived  with  her  charges  apart  from 
the  rest  of  the  household,  training  them  in  the 
few  branches  of  learning  studied  by  young 
ladies  of  that  day,  teaching  them  fine  needle- 
work of  various  kinds,  one  with  them  in  their 
pleasures  and  pursuits.  They  are  said  to  have 
dressed  after  a  fashion  dictated  by  their  gov- 
erness and  never  altered  while  they  were  under 


58         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

her  care  ;  a  sort  of  pelisse,  or  loose  gown, — 
like  the  modern  peignoir, — of  fine  flowered 
chintz,  opened  in  front  to  show  a  green  silk 
petticoat.  Their  hair,  thick,  long,  and  very 
beautiful,  was  tied  at  the  back  of  the  head  with 
ribbon.  We  are  asked,  furthermore,  to  believe 
that  up  to  the  age  of  sixteen,  the  sisters  had 
seen  no  women  of  their  own  station  except 
their  governess,  and  no  white  man  but  their 
father,  who  visited  them  every  day,  and  took  a 
lively  interest  in  their  education.  When,  in 
his  judgment,  they  were  ready  to  leave  the 
conventual  retreat,  he  married  Mary  to  her 
cousin,  Guy  Johnson,  Ann  to  Daniel  Claus. 
After  their  marriages,  they  acquired  the  ways 
of  the  outer  world  with  wonderful  rapidity, 
and  played  their  parts  as  society  women 
well. 

The  tradition,  if  it  be  true,  ranks  itself  upon 
the  reputable,  country-gentleman  side  of  their 
father's  dual  nature.  By  no  other  means  could 
he  have  kept  Mary  Brant  and  her  brood  apart 
from  the  fair-faced  daughters  of  Catherine 
Wissenberg,  or  prevented  the  shadow  of  early 
equivocal  associations  from  darkening  the  fame 
of  Mesdames  Guy  Johnson  and  Daniel  Claus. 
He  was  passing  wise  in  his  generation. 


Johnson  Hall  59 

If  the  tale  be  not  authentic,  it  ought  to  be. 

Many  of  the  incidents  linked  into  the  story 
of  Johnson  Hall  rest  upon  the  valid  testimony 
of  Mrs.  Edwards,  a  sister  of  Mr.  Eleazar 
Wells.  This  venerable  gentlewoman  lived  to 
see  her  eighty-seventh  birthday,  and  preserved 
her  excellent  memory  to  the  latest  day  of  her 
life.  One  of  these  anecdotes  is  curiously 
suggestive. 

On  a  certain  day  in  the  year  181 5,  or  there- 
abouts, a  party  of  eight  or  ten  horsemen  ap- 
peared at  the  Hall,  and  demanded  permission 
to  go  into  the  cellar.  None  of  the  men  of  the 
family  were  at  home,  and  Mrs.  Wells,  dread- 
ing violence  if  the  visitors  were  refused,  granted 
the  singular  request,  contriving,  nevertheless, 
that  their  proceedings  should  be  watched.  In 
a  dark  corner  of  the  cellar  was  a  well,  dug  by 
Sir  William  Johnson  to  supply  the  garrison 
with  water  in  the  event  of  a  siege,  but  now 
half  filled  with  stones  and  earth.  The  intrud- 
ers began  at  once  to  tear  out  the  rubbish, 
presently  unearthing  several  boxes,  which  they 
carried  into  the  upper  air  and  into  a  field 
back  of  the  house  and  orchard.  In  the  sight 
of  the  terrified  women  watching  them  from  the 
upper  windows,    they  emptied   the  coffers  of 


60         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

the  papers  that  filled  them  and  "  sat  on  the 
ground  a  long  time," — said  Mrs.  Edwards, — 
opening  and  examining  them.  At  last,  they 
made  a  fire  upon  the  hillside  and  threw  arm- 
ful after  armful  of  the  papers  into  it.  When 
all  were  consumed,  they  remounted  their  horses, 
and  rode  off  "  towards  Canada." 

Sir  John  Johnson  was  then  alive.  The  sur- 
mise was  inevitable  that  search  and  destruc- 
tion were  instigated  by  him,  and  for  reasons 
we  can  never  know. 

At  some  period  of  its  history  the  interesting 
old  landmark  had  rough  usage  from  temporary 
occupants.  If  the  hall-carpet  were  lifted  we 
should  see  the  print  of  stamping  hoofs  upon 
the  oaken  boards  beneath,  proving  that  troop- 
ers— American  or  Tory — stabled  their  horses 
there,  tethering  them  to  the  noble  staircase 
protected  from  nominal  barbarians  by  the 
gashes  of  Brant's  hatchet. 

Sir  William  Johnson  was  buried  in  a  brick 
vault  constructed  in  his  lifetime  under  the 
chancel  of  St.  John's  Church  in  Johnstown. 
The  corner-stone  of  the  building  "  was  laid  in 
1772  with  Masonic  ceremonies,  Sir  William 
Johnson,  Sir  John  Johnson,  John  Butler,  Daniel 
Claus,  Guy  Johnson,  and  General   Herkimer 


ST.  JOHN'S  CHURCH,  JOHNSTOWN,   N.  V. 


Johnson  Hall  63 

taking  part  therein.  .  .  .  This  church 
contained  the  first  church-organ  west  of  Al- 
bany." 

So  writes  Mr.  James  T.  Younglove,  an  ac- 
complished antiquarian  and  a  zealous  student 
of  the  stirring  history  of  the  Mohawk  Valley. 

William  Elliott  Griffis  adds  that  when  the 
church  was  burned  in  1836,  and  rebuilt  (with 
the  old  stones  as  far  as  possible)  in  1838,  "the 
site  was  so  changed  that  the  grave  of  Johnson 
was  left  outside  the  new  building.  .  .  .In 
1862  th'e  rector,  Rev.  Charles  H.  Kellogg, 
took  measurements,  sunk  a  shaft,  and  dis- 
covered the  brick  vault." 

The  sanctity  of  the  tomb  of  the  loyal  subject 
of  King  George  had  been  invaded  long  before. 
The  leaden  case  enveloping  the  solid  ma- 
hogany coffin  was  melted  down  and  moulded 
into  bullets  during  the  Revolutionary  War 
(to  be  fired  at  those  of  his  own  blood  and 
name ! ).  The  ring  with  which  he  married 
Catherine  Wissenberg  was  found  embedded 
in  his  dust,  and  is  still  preserved  by  the 
Masonic  Lodge  he  established  at  Johnson 
Hall.  After  his  death  the  lodge  was  removed 
to  the  quarters  it  now  occupies  in  Johnstown. 
The    cradle    in    which  "  Mary    Brant,    house- 


64      .   More  Colonial  Homesteads 

keeper,"   rocked   his    tawny   children,    is    also 
kept  there. 

The  poor  mortal  remains  of  the  fearless 
master  among  men  were  retained  in  a  M  hol- 
lowed granite  block"  in  the  churchyard.  No 
other  grave  is  near  it.  For  sixty  years  school- 
boys played  and  romped  and  shouted  over  it, 
and  passers  in  the  streets  of  the  now  thriving 
town  gave  as  little  thought  to  the  unmarked 
mound.  Within  the  past  five  years  the  earnest 
efforts  of  the  President  of  the  Johnstown 
Historical  Society,  Hon.  Horace  E.  Smith, 
have  been  the  means  of  enkindling  new  and 
intelligent  interest  in  one  whom  Dr.  Griffis 
calls  "  the  Maker  of  America."  A  movement 
is  now  on  foot  to  erect  a  suitable  monument 
to  the  pioneer  to  whom  Johnstown  owes  birth, 
name,  and  the  associations  that  make  it  an 
historic  shrine. 


Ill 


LACHAUMIERE  DU  PRAIRIE,  NEAR  LEXINGTON. 
KENTUCKY 

The  Travels  of  John  Francis,  Marquis  de 
Chastelleux,  in  North  America,  is  a  rare  old 
book  from  which  several  quotations  were  made 
in  a  former  volume  of  this  series. 

In  a  stately  style,  somewhat  stiffened  by  the 
English  translator,  the  author — one  of  the  forty 
members  of  the  French  Academy,  and  Major- 
General  in  the  French  army  under  the  Count 
de  Rochambeau — describes  a  "  dining-day,"  as 
it  was  called  in  the  region,  at  Maycox,  oppos- 
ite Westover  on  the  James  River.  The  trav- 
elled Marquis  had  met  Mr.  David  Meade,  the 
proprietor  of  Maycox,  and  his  wife  at  Williams- 
burg, some  weeks  earlier  than  the  date  of  the 
foreigner's  sojourn  at  Westover,  and  then  and 
there  had  a  cordial  invitation  to  visit  their 
plantation. 

65 


66         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

After  descanting,  in  Grandisonian  periods, 
upon  the  "  charming  situation  "  of  Maycox,  he 
informs  us  that  it  was  "  extremely  well  fitted 
up  within."  Furthermore,  it  commanded  a 
full  view  of  Westover,  "  which,  with  its  sur- 
rounding appendages,  had  the  appearance  of  a 
small  town."  Westover,  the  seat  of  the  Byrds, 
was  still  in  the  prime  of  prosperity  to  the  casual 
eye,  crippled  'though  the  family  fortunes  were 
by  the  "gaining"  propensities  of  the  late 
owner,  William  Byrd  the  third.  The  French 
nobleman  saw  everything  through  the  couleur 
de  rose  of  gallant  appreciation  of  the  many 
charms  of  the  widowed  chatelaine,  heightened 
by  gratitude  for  the  distinguished  hospitality 
he  had  received  from  her  and  other  James 
River  landowners. 

There  is,  then,  an  accent  of  surprise  in  his 
mention  of  Mr.  Meade's  latent  discontent  with 
the  lot  cast  for  him  in  these  pleasant  places. 

"The  charming  situation,"  he  observes,  "  is  capable 
of  being  made  still  more  beautiful  if  Mr.  Meade  pre- 
serves his  house,  and  gives  some  attention  to  it,  for  he  is 
a  philosopher  of  a  very  amiable,  but  singular,  turn  of 
mind,  and  such  as  is  particularly  uncommon  in  Virginia, 
since  he  rarely  attends  to  affairs  of  interest,  and  cannot 
prevail  upon  himself  to  make  his  negroes  work.  He  is 
even  so  disgusted  with  a  culture  wherein  it  is  necessary 


La  Chaumiere  du  Prairie  67 

to  make  use  of  slaves  that  he  is  tempted  to  sell  his  pos- 
sessions in  Virginia  and  remove  to  New  England." 

Rev.  Meade  C.  Williams,  D.D.,  of  St.  Louis, 
a  descendant  of  the  nascent  Abolitionist  {pro 
tempore!},  records  that  Mr.  (Colonel)  David 
Meade  spent  three  ample  inherited  fortunes 
upon  the  adornment  of  Maycox  and  the  home- 
stead in  Kentucky,  to  which  territory  he  re- 
moved shortly  after  his  threat  to  solace  his 
conscience  by  seeking  an  abiding-place  in  New 
England. 

"  It  will  be  noted,"  continues  the  document 
before  me,  "  that  the  most  conspicuous  feature 
of  the  Meades  has  been  this  very  lack  of  ambi- 
tion in  state  affairs,  and  a  love  of  domestic 
tranquility." 

So  far,  so  good,  in  the  branch  of  an  ancient 
and  honourable  family  to  which  this  particular 
planter  belonged.  The  assertion  is  a  decided 
misfit  when  we  attempt  to  join  it  to  other  sec- 
tions of  the  genealogical  table.  One  of  the 
ancestors  of  the  disgusted  slaveholder  and 
amiable  philosopher  was  Thomas  Cromwell,  a 
pupil  of  Cardinal  Wolsey,  who,  in  bidding  a 
long  farewell  to  all  his  greatness,  charged  his 
subordinate  to  "  fling  away  ambition." 

Cromwell  rejoins  feelingly  : 


68         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

"  The  king  shall  have  my  service,  but  my  prayers 
For  ever  and  for  ever  shall  be  yours." 

Wolsey  did  not  doubt  the  "  honest  truth  " 
of  his  late  follower,  and  tearful  Thomas  meant 
sincerely  enough  when  he  called  "  all  that  have 
not  hearts  of  iron  "  to  bear  witness — 

"  With  what  a  sorrow  Cromwell  leaves  his  lord." 

Yet  the  next  act  finds 

"  Thomas  Cromwell 
A  man  in  much  esteem  with  the  king  and  truly 
A  worthy  friend.     .     .     .     The  king 
Has  made  him  master  of  the  jewel-house 
And  one,  already,  of  the  privy  council." 

Oliver  Cromwell  was  a  nephew  of  Thomas. 
Whatever  other  failings  were  charged  upon  the 
Lord  Protector,  he  was  never  accused  by  con- 
temporaries or  by  posterity  with  a  lack  of 
vaulting  ambition. 

Running  an  inquisitive  finger  down  the  race- 
line  of  the  Meades,  we  arrest  it  at  the  name 
and  history  of  the  first  of  the  family  who  emi- 
grated to  America.  Andrew  Meade,  an  Irish 
Roman  Catholic,  crossed  the  ocean  (for  rea- 
sons we  may  be  able  to  show  presently)  late 
in  the  seventeenth  century. 


La  Chaumiere  du  Prairie  69 

"In  the  year  1745  he  deceased,  leaving  a 
character  without  a  stain,  having  had  the  glori- 
ous epithet  connected  with  his  name,  long  be- 
fore he  died,  of  '  The  Honest.'  " 

It  is  more  than  conjectured  that  his  self- 
expatriation  followed  close  upon  the  accession 
of  William  and  Mary  to  the  throne  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland.  He  belonged  to  a  fight- 
ing family,  and  such  men  were  safer  in  the 
Colonies  than  at  home. 

The  element  of  "tranquility"  may  have 
been  infused  into  blood  hitherto  somewhat  hot 
and  turbulent,  by  his  marriage  with  an  Ameri- 
can Quakeress,  Mary  Latham  by  name.  He 
left  the  bulk  of  his  Virginia  estate  to  his  eldest 
son,  David  (1),  who  married,  four  or  five  years 
after  his  father's  decease,  the  daughter  of  an 
English  baronet.  At  the  date  of  the  marriage, 
the  father-in-law,  Sir  Richard  Everard,  was 
proprietary  governor  of  North  Carolina. 

The  second  David  Meade  was  born  in  1744. 
In  accordance  with  the  general  custom  of  well- 
born and  affluent  English  colonists,  his  father 
sent  him  to  England,  at  a  tender  age,  to  get  a 
gentleman's  education.  He  got  it  at  Harrow 
School.  The  Head  Master  at  that  time  was 
Dr.  Thackeray,  Archdeacon  of  Surrey,  Chap- 


70         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

lain  to  the  Prince  of  Wales,  and  grandfather  to 
the  great  novelist  of  that  name. 

A  story   current    in  the  Meade  connexion, 
even  down  to  our  day,  is  that  the  persons  and 


DAVID  MEADE  AT  THE  AGE  OF  8. 

FROM    ORIGINAL    PAINTING    BY    THOMAS    HUDSON.        OWNED    BY    E.     P.     WILLIAMS,     ESQ., 
OF     NEW     YORK. 

characters  of  David  Meade  and  his  younger 
and  more  brilliant  brother,  Richard  Kidder, — 
who  joined  him  in  England  some  years  there- 
after, going  with  him  from  Harrow  to  a  private 
school  in  Hackney  Parish, — furnished  the  sug- 
gestion of  William  Makepeace  Thackeray's 
Virginians.     It  is  certain  that  David,  at  least, 


La  Chaumiere  du  Prairie  71 

was  domesticated  for  five  years  in  Dr. 
Thackeray's  family,  greatly  endearing  himself 
to  the  Head  Master  and  his  "pious,  charitable, 
and  in  every  way  exemplary  lady."  Thus 
David  Meade  described  her  over  half  a  century 
later.  He  adds  that  "he  was  bound  to  them 
by  ties  much  stronger  than  those  of  nature,  in- 
somuch that  the  most  affecting  event  of  his 
whole  life  was  His  separation  from  them." 

What  more  likely  than  that  the  sayings  and 
doings  of  the  brace  of  colonists,  as  handsome 
as  they  were  spirited,  were  passed  down  the 
Thackeray  generations  until  they  lodged  in  the 
imagination  of  the  greatest  of  the  clan  ?  The 
tradition,  too  pleasing  to  be  lightly  discarded, 
is  the  more  plausible  for  the  circumstance  that 
Richard  Kidder  Meade  became  one  of  Wash- 
ington's aides  in  the  Revolutionary  War  and 
was,  in  private  life,  his  intimate  friend. 
Thackeray  could  hardly  have  overlooked  the 
association  of  the  names  in  his  quest  for 
material  for  The  Virginians. 

David  (2)  returned  to  Virginia  in  1761 
after  ten  years'  absence.  "  The  forests  and 
black  population  of  his  native  land  were  novel, 
but  not  by  any  means  pleasing  to  him,  and 
nothing  was  less  familiar  to  him  than  the  per- 


72         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

sons  of  the  individuals  of  his  family."  His 
sisters  were  married  ;  he  had  left  his  brothers, 
Richard  Kidder  and  Everard,  at  school  in 
England,  and  two  younger  children  born  in  his 


EVERARD    MEADE    (AGED    9). 


absence  would  not  be  companions  for  him  for 
a  long  while  to  come. 

In  the  ensuing  seven  years  he  saw  all  of 
"  life  " — social  and  political — the  New  World 
had  to  offer  to  the  son  of  a  wealthy  father,  the 
brother-in-law  of  Richard  Randolph  of  Curies, 
and  the  near  neighbour  of  the  Byrds  of  West- 


La  Chaumiere  du  Prairie  73 

over.  In  company  with  two  of  the  Randolphs 
he  visited  Philadelphia,  was  the  guest  of 
General  Gage  in  New  York,  sailed  up  the 
Hudson  to  Albany,  threaded  swamps  and 
forests  to  Saratoga  •  and  Lake  George,  was 
hospitably  entertained  at  Ticonderoga  and 
Crown  Point,  and  so  on  to  Canada.  In  Mon- 
treal, Captain  Daniel  Claus,  (an  old  acquaint- 
ance to  the  readers  of  our  chapters  upon 
Johnson   Hall), 

"  son-in-law  of  Sir  William  Johnson  and  deputy-su- 
perintendent of  Indian  affairs,  invited  them  to  a  congress 
of  Indian  chiefs  from  several  nations  upon  the  lakes,  the 
town  being  then  full  of  Indians.  The  Intendant  in- 
troduced the  travellers  to  each  of  them  individually  as 
Brethren  of  the  Long  Knife,'  who  had  come  from  the 
South,  almost  a  thousand  miles,  to  visit  Canada.  .  .  . 
The  Intendant  [Claus],  after  the  ceremony  of  introducing 
the  Long  Knives,  or  Virginians,  opened  the  congress  with 
a  speech,  or  talk." 

The  tour  occupied  nearly  three  months  of 
the  year  1765. 

In  1768  David  (2)  Meade  married  Sarah 
Waters  of  Williamsburg,  and  the  same  year 
offered  himself  as  a  candidate  for  the  House 
of  Burgesses.  He  was  elected  and  took  his 
seat  in  May,  1 769,  although  feebly  convalescent 


74         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

from  a  recent  attack  of  illness.  The  session 
was  short  and  stormy. 

Ten  days  were  spent  in  debates  upon  the 
subjects  at  issue  between  England  and  the 
Colonies,  and  the  passage'of  certain  resolutions 
so  offensive  to  the  Governor  of  Virginia,  Lord 
Botetourt,  that  he  drove  in  vice-regal  state  to 
the  Capitol  and  dissolved  the  Assembly  in  an 
address  that  had  the  merits  of  conciseness  and 
comprehensiveness  : 

"  Gentlemen :  I  have  heard  of  your  re- 
solves, and  I  augur  their  ill  effects.  You  have 
made  it  my  duty  to  dissolve  you,  and  you  are 
accordingly  dissolved." 

David  Meade,  "  completely  cured  of  his  am- 
bition,"— and  it  would  seem,  for  life, — settled 
down  at  Maycox  to  the  congenial  pursuits  of 
landscape  gardening  and  horticulture  and  the 
enjoyment  of  the  domestic  felicity  which  was 
his  from  the  day  of  his  bridal  until  death 
separated  the  married  lovers. 

The  curious  and  interesting  sketch  of  his  life 
written  in  the  third  person  by  himself,  which 
has  been  courteously  put  at  my  disposal  by  his 
great-grandson,  Dr.  M.  C.  Williams,  is  unsatis- 
factory only  when  it  deals  with  his  own  achieve- 
ments and  virtues.      It  is  amusing  to  read  that, 


La  Chaumiere  du  Prairie  75 

of  the  various  branches  studied  by  him  during 
his  ten  years  of  English  schooling — 

"  he  did  not  take  enough  away  to  impoverish  the 
Academy.  He  had  a  very  small  smattering  of  everything 
he  had  attempted  to  learn,  but  less  of  the  languages,  both 
dead  and  foreign,  than  of  the  sciences  and  the  elegant 
arts.  Thus,  butordinarily  qualified  for  the  humble  walks 
of  private  life,  and  without  natural  talents,  or  acquired 
knowledge,  to  move  with  any  credit  to  himself  in  public, 
he  left  England.  ...  He  was  content  with  the 
very  little  that  was  his  due — the  extreme  humble  merit 
of  negative  virtues.  .  .  .  He  was  a  great  builder  of 
castles  in  the  air  ;  but  conscious,  as  he  was,  that  he  had 
neither  figure,  face,  nor  accomplishments  to  qualify 
him  for  an  epitome  of  a  romance  here,  he  prudently  de- 
termined to  fall  in  love  and  marry  somewhat  after  the 
fashion  of  the  people.  Nevertheless,  he  was  fastidious 
in  the  choice  of  his  subject." 

All  this  is  entertaining  when  we  bear  in 
mind  that  David  Meade  was  one  of  the  hand- 
somest and  most  accomplished  gentlemen  of 
his  generation — "  a  day  when,  in  the  class  to 
which  he  belonged,  culture  was  at  the  highest." 
It  is  tantalising,  even  vexatious,  that  he  puts 
himself  into  the  background  after  the  brief 
notice  of  his  marriage  and  the  purchase  of  May- 
cox,  and  devotes  many  pages  to  what  he  says 
was  "a  subject  much  more  interesting  to  the 
writer,"  the  countless  virtues,  personal  endow- 


76         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

ments  and  achievements  of  his  brother,  Richard 
Kidder.  As  has  been  noted,  Richard  Kidder 
was  on  Washington's  staff,  having  raised  a 
company  in  1776-77,  and  been  unanimously 
elected  as  its  captain.  He  fought  bravely 
throughout  the  war,  meeting  with  many  advent- 
ures, having  sundry  hairbreadth  escapes,  and 
receiving  signal  honours  from  the  Commander- 
in-chief  and  Congress.  After  the  arrest  of 
Andre,  Richard  Kidder  Meade  was  the  bearer 
of  a  letter  from  Washington  to  Sir  Henry 
Clinton  "  upon  the  subject  of  that  accom- 
plished officer's  case."  He  died  in  1781,  "  be- 
loved by  all  who  were  acquainted  with  him, 
esteemed  and  respected  by  his  neighbours,  and 
every  one  that  had  ever  heard  of  his  worth." 

The  family  Annals  from  which  these  excerpts 
are  made  were  transcribed  in  characters  so 
minute  that  the  descendant  who  undertook  the 
pious  duty  of  copying  them  for  the  press,  was 
obliged  to  hold  a  magnifying-glass  in  one 
hand  while  writing  with  the  other.  The  vol- 
ume is  guarded  by  a  sort  of  trespass-board 
notice  upon  the  title-page  : 

14  It  is  to  be  noted  that  these  pages  are  not 
intended  for,  and  never  will  be  exposed  to, 
public  inspection,    and   are   intended  only  for 


La  Chaumiere  du  Prairie  77 

the  amusement  and,  peradventure,  the  edifica- 
tion of  the  House  of  Meade." 

When  these  lines  were  penned,  he  had  lived 
for  thirty  years  in  "  Chaumiere  du  Prairie  in 
the  now  State  of  Kentucky,"  as  he  says,  "hav- 
ing landed  with  a  numerous  family  from  boats 
at  Limestone,  now  Maysville,  and  permanently 
settled  at  the  headspring  of  Jessamine  Creek, 
a  lateral  branch  of  the  Kentucky  River." 

The  formidable  flitting  was  a  removal  for 
life.  The  tract  of  land  purchased  by  his  eldest 
son,  David  (3),  whom  the  father  had  sent  to 
Kentucky  "to  prospect"  some  months  before 
the  hegira  of  the  numerous  family,  was  in  the 
very  heart  of  the  "blue-grass  country,"  the 
garden-spot  of  the  stalwart  young  territory, 
old  Virginia's  favourite  daughter.  Reports  of 
the  fertility  of  unclaimed  fields,  irrigated  by 
clear  creeks,  of  virgin  forests  and  navigable 
rivers,  of  a  climate  at  once  mild  and  salubri- 
ous— had  reached  the  Meade  dwelling  in  the 
midst  of  a  civilisation  more  than  a  century  and 
a  half  old,  and  attracted  them,  as  to  a  promised 
land  of  beauty  and  plenty. 

David  Meade  built  a  lodge,  afterwards  en- 
larged into  a  mansion,  near  the  centre  of  an 
extensive   plain,  shaded  at  intervals  by  clumps 


78         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

of  magnificent  sugar-maples,  and  forthwith  fell 
to  work  to  make  it  what  a  Meade  MS.  declares 
it  to  have  been, — "  the  first  lordly  home  in 
Kentucky."  Incidentally,  he  expended  upon 
the  enterprise  one-and-a-half  of  the  three  am- 
ple fortunes  of  which  he  was  possessed. 

One  hundred  acres  of  arable  land,  seeded 
down  with  the  famous  blue-grass,  then  shorn 
and  rolled  into  velvety  turf,  were  enclosed  by 
a  low  stone  wall,  masked  by  honeysuckles  and 
climbing  roses.  A  porter's  lodge  of  rough- 
hewn  stone  stood  at  the  gate  set  between  solid 
stone  pillars.  Upon  the  arch  above  the  gate 
was  cut  the  name  the  immigrant  had  bestowed 
upon  it, — Chaumilre  du  Prairie. 

The  French  title  gave  travelled  visitors  the 
motif  of  the  living  poem  embodied  in  the 
grounds.  Le  Petit  Trianon  was  evidently  an 
abiding  memory  and  suggestion  in  the  de- 
signer's thoughts.  The  serpentine  walk  and 
the  long  straight  alley,  bordered  by  large  trees, 
the  benches  set  at  irregular  intervals  along  the 
walks,  the  pavilion  in  an  embowered  nook,  the 
waterfall  and  lake,  the  artificial  island  and 
the  rustic  bridge  thrown  from  it  to  the  shore, 
the  Grecian  temple,  the  shaded  vistas  cool  with 
deep  green  shadows  and  solemn  with  silence, — 


La  Chaumiere  du  Prairie  79 

were  reminiscences,  not  of  terraced  Westover 
and  Maycox,  but  of  the  half-English  lad's  con- 
tinental travels.  Here,  at  least,  he  could 
"materialise"  one  of  the  castles  in  the  air  he 
was  fond  of  building. 

Colonel  Meade's  granddaughter,  Mrs.  Susan 
Creighton  Williams  of  Fort  Wayne,  Indiana, 
wrote  out,  in  her  seventy-second  year,  her 
recollections  of  the  holiday-home  of  her  child- 
hood. The  pen-picture  reproduces  house  and 
pleasure-grounds  for  us  as  pencil  and  brush 
could  not.  I  regret  that  the  bounds  set  for 
this  chapter  will  not  allow  me  to  share  all  the 
graphic  details  of  the  goodly  scene  with  my 
readers.  Landscape  and  atmosphere  are  Ar- 
cadian, not  the  crude  product  of  a  newly  made 
"settlement." 

"  The  House,"  we  read,  "  was  what  might  be  called 
a  villa, — covering  a  great  deal  of  ground,  built  in  an  ir- 
regular style,  of  various  materials — wood,  stone,  brick, 
— and  one  mud  room,  which,  by  the  way,  was  quite  a 
pretty,  tasteful  spare  bedroom.  The  part  composed  of 
brick  was  a  large  octagon  drawing-room.  The  dining- 
hall  was  a  large,  square  room,  wainscoated  with  black 
walnut,  with  very  deep  window-seats,  where  we  children 
used  sometimes  to  hide  ourselves  behind  the  heavy  cur- 
tains. There  was  one  large,  square  hall,  and  numerous 
passageways,  lobbies,  areas,  etc.    .    .     .    The  bird-cage 


80         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

walk  was  one  cut  through  a  dense  plum  thicket,  entirely- 
excluding  the  sun.  It  led  to  a  dell  where  was  a  spring 
of  the  best  water,  and  near  by  was  the  mouth  of  a  cave 
which  had  some  little  notoriety.  .  .  .  Beyond  the  lawn 
there  was  a  large  piece  of  ground  which  Mr.  Meade  al- 
ways said  ought  to  have  been  a  sheet  of  water  to  make 
his  grounds  perfect.  This  was  sown  in  clover  that  it 
might,  as  he  thought,  somewhat  resemble  water  in  ap- 
pearance. In  one  of  our  summer  sojourns  in  Chaumiere, 
when  my  sister  Julia  (Mrs.  Ball)  was  about  three  years 
of  age,  soon  after  our  arrival  the  nurse  took  her  out  upon 
the  lawn,  where  she  shrank  back  and  cried  out '  Oh,  river  ! 
river  !  '  greatly  to  our  grandfather's  delight.  He  said  it 
was  the  greatest  compliment  his  grounds  had  ever  had." 

The  ingenious  conceit  was  characteristic  of 
the  planter-dreamer  and  born  artist.  His 
aesthetic  sense  demanded  the  shimmer  of  water 
at  that  point  of  the  verdant  level,  flanked  by 
groups  of  sugar- maples..  In  the  summer  sun- 
shine the  tremulous  expanse  of  silver-lined 
leaves  supplied  the  ripple  and  gleam  required 
"to  make  his  grounds  perfect." 

As  the  M  dark  and  bloody  ground "  ex- 
changed her  solitary  wilds  for  cultured  fields 
and  fast-growing  towns,  Chaumiere  became 
the  show-place  of  the  State.  Lexington  was 
but  nine  miles  distant,  and  no  personage  of 
political  or  social  consequence  visited  the 
lively  little  place  without  driving  out  to  the 


MRS.    SARAH    WATERS    MEADE. 

FROM    PAINTING    IN     POSSESSION     OF    E.    P.     WILLIAMS,     ESQ.,     OF    NEW    YORK. 


8l 


La  Chaumiere  du  Prairie  8 


6 


hospitable  country-seat  of  the  Meades.  There 
were  house-parties  especially  invited,  who  were 
domiciliated  for  a  week  or  fortnight  at  a  time, 
making  excursions  through  the  beautiful  sur- 
rounding country,  feasting,  dancing,  gathering 
in  the  great  "stone  passage"  in  the  purple 
twilight  for  tea-drinking  and  chat,  and  watch- 
ing the  shadows  steal  over  the  paradise  visible 
through  front  and  back  doors,  while  Mrs. 
Meade  sat  at  the  pianoforte  in  the  adjoining 
drawing-room.  She  played  with  exquisite 
taste  and  feeling  until  she  was  long  past  three- 
score-and-ten.  The  octagon  drawing-room 
was  all  draped  with  satin  brocade — the  walls, 
the  windows,  and  the  frames  of  the  four  tall 
mirrors  reaching  from  floor  to  ceiling. 

It  saw  much  and  distinguished  company 
during  the  forty  years'  residence  and  reign  of 
the  fine  old  Virginia  and  Kentucky  gentleman. 
Four  Presidents  of  the  United  States — Thomas 
Jefferson,  James  Monroe,  Andrew  Jackson,  and 
Zachary  Taylor — were  entertained  here.  The 
lady  of  the  manor, — "always  dressed  in  black 
satin,  to  which  were  added  handsome  lace  and 
embroideries  upon  occasion," — stately  and 
beautiful  in  the  standing  ruff  and  high-crowned 
cap  of  bygone  years,  had  her  favourites  among 


84         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

the  celebrities.  We  are  surprised  to  learn  that 
she  considered  General  Jackson  the  most  re- 
markable man  she  had  ever  known,  with  the 
possible  exception  of  Aaron  Burr.  She  used 
to  relate  to  her  listening  grandchildren  what 
an  imposing  figure  he  was,  as,  sitting  tall  and 
straight  upon  his  charger,  he  cantered  up  the 
avenue  to  the  porch  of  Chaumiere.  Host  and 
hostess  were  waiting  there  to  greet  the  hero 
of  New  Orleans. 

Colonel  Meade,  like  his  wife,  had  made  no 
change  in  the  fashion  of  his  attire  for  half  a 
century.  Coat,  short  breeches,  and  the  long 
waistcoat  reaching  to  his  hips,  were  of  light 
drab  cloth.  His  white  or  black  silk  stockings 
were  held  up  by  jewelled  knee-buckles  and 
a  similar  pair  adorned  his  low  shoes.  The 
buttons  of  coat  and  waistcoat  were  silver, 
stamped  with  the  Meade  crest.  The  same 
insignia  appeared  upon  the  massive  silver  serv- 
ice used  upon  the  table  every  day  whether 
there  were  company  in  the  house  or  not. 
Mrs.  Meade's  piano  was  the  first  brought  to 
Kentucky.  Certain  handsome  pieces  of  furni- 
ture were  heirlooms  from  English  houses — 
notably  from  the  Palace  of  Bath  and  Wells, 
an  inheritance  from  the  Kidder  who  was  once 


La  Chaumiere  du  Prairie  85 

Bishop  of  that  See.  Another  valued  relic  was 
a  souvenir  of  the  Irish  Roman  Catholic  Meade 
whose  services  for  the  Church  were  recognised 
by  the  gift  of  a  crucifix  of  ebony  and  ivory  pre- 
sented by  the  then  reigning  Pontiff.  A  gold 
medal  dependent  from  the  crucifix  bore  a  Latin 
inscription  said  to  have  been  composed  by 
Charles  V.,  Emperor  of  Spain  and  Germany. 
The  dining-room  buffets  bore  marvellous  treas- 
ures of  cut-glass  and  porcelain,  in  such  abund- 
ance as  to  set  out  tables  for  one  hundred  guests, 
once  and  again. 

That  number  sat  down  on  Christmas  Day, 
18 18,  to  an  entertainment  which,  writes  one  of 
the  guests, 

"  in  management,  in  simplicity  of  style,  and  without  the 
least  ostentation,  though  all  the  surroundings  were  pro- 
fusely rich — surpassed  anything  of  the  kind  I  have  ever 
witnessed.  .  .  .  The  magnificent  rooms  are  furnished 
with  taste  and  consummate  art,  and  there  was  an  exhibi- 
tion of  surpassing  brilliancy  produced  without  any  ap- 
parent attempt." 

Another  guest,  a  college  president,  says  of  a 
visit  paid  to  the  Meades  earlier  in  the  same 
year  : 

"  Col.  Meade  is  entirely  a  man  of  leisure,  never  having 
followed  any  business,  and  never  using  his  fortune  but 


86         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

in  adorning  his  place  and  entertaining  friends  and  strang- 
ers. No  word  is  ever  sent  to  him  that  company  is  com- 
ing. To  do  so  offends  him.  But  a  dinner  at  the  hour 
of  four  is  always  ready  for  visitors,  and  servants  are 
always  in  waiting.  Twenty  of  us  went  one  day  without 
warning,  and  were  entertained  luxuriously  on  the  viands 
of  the  country.  Our  drinks  consisted  of  beer  and  wine. 
He  does  not  allow  cigars  to  be  smoked  on  his  premises." 

The  fact  noted  in  the  last  sentence  is  unex- 
pected. The  most  fastidious  gentlemen  in 
America  were  confirmed  smokers,  and  the  cul- 
tivation and  exportation  of  tobacco  contributed 
more  largely  to  the  wealth  of  Virginia  and  cer- 
tain parts  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  than 
any  other  industry.  Of  Blairs,  Breckinridges, 
Marshalls,  Floyds,  Scotts,  Leighs,  Routledges, 
Clays,  presidents  of  universities,  and  presi- 
dents of  the  United  States  who  were  made 
welcome  in  turn  to  the  lordly  homestead,  four 
out  of  five  must  have  been  lovers  of  what 
William  Evelyn  Byrd  has  taught  us  to  call 
"  the  bewitching  vegetable."  Colonel  Meade's 
aversion  to  the  practices  of  smoking  and  chew- 
ing is  referable  to  the  punctilious  neatness 
which  was  first  and  second  nature  with  him. 
Not  a  fallen  leaf  or  twig  was  suffered  to  litter 
the  velvet  turf.  Every  day  a  company  of  small 
negroes  was  detailed  for  the  duty  of  picking 


La  Chaumiere  du  Prairie  &7 

up  such  leaves  and  sticks  as  had  fallen  during 
the  night,  and  the  master  often  supervised  the 
work. 

A  lineal  descendant  give's  a  vivacious  ac- 
count of  some  manifestations  of  Colonel 
Meade's  exceeding  strictness  in  the  matters  of 
order  and  cleanliness.  Among  other  illustra- 
tions we  have  this  pretty  picture  : 

"  The  mulberries  of  that  day  and  place  were  of  a  much 
finer  quality,  much  larger,  and  more  fruity  than  of  the 
present.  Troops  of  boarding-school  girls  from  Lexing- 
ton would  come  out  to  this  enchanting  place,  and  when 
they  sought  mulberries,  Colonel  Meade  would  have  serv- 
ants detailed  to  shake  them  from  the  trees.  Out  of  re- 
gard for  the  white  dresses  (with  blue  sashes,  perchance 
— bless  them  !)  of  the  maiden  of  that  time,  his  instruc- 
tions were  that  the  berries  were  to  be  picked  up,  com- 
mencing at  the  outer  edge  of  their  fall.  Treading  them 
into  the  grass  was  unpardonable.  How  the  old  gentle- 
man of  the  old  school  would  flame  up  with  an  amiable 
oath  when  this  order  was  transgressed  !  Beneath  the 
fruit-trees  was  as  clean  and  neat  as  any  part  of  the  lawn." 

Yet  we  read  that  "  kindliness  was  a  feature 
of  his  exalted  nature."  A  common  and  beauti- 
ful custom  of  the  region  was  that  the  negroes, 
for  miles  around,  came  to  be  married  in  the 
Chaumiere  grounds.  The  master  was  indig- 
nant with  the  low-bred  white  who  stole  into 


88         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

the  gardens  or  groves  by  some  other  way  than 
the  great  gateway  that  "  stood  open  night  and 
day."  "Courteous  to  all,  he  exacted  courtesy 
from  others.  He  had  great  respect  for  the 
courteous  negro  of  the  old  time." 

The  negro  of  any  time  is  an  imitative  an- 
imal. The  Meade  servants  caught  their  own- 
er's tone  and  bearing  with  almost  ludicrous 
fidelity.  Henry  Clay  was  a  frequent  visitor  at 
Chaumiere,  and  was  put  upon  his  mettle — with 
all  the  perfection  of  his  breeding — not  to  be 
outdone  in  grace  and  suavity  by  Dean,  the 
chief  butler.  This  high  functionary,  with  his 
five  subordinate  footmen  and  the  coachman, 
wore  drab  liveries  with  silver  buttons  and 
shoe-buckles. 

Such  was  the  parental  and  judicious  care 
exercised  over  the  coloured  members  of  "the 
family,"  that  during  the  long  lifetime  of  Colo- 
nel Meade  not  one  case  of  fatal  illness  oc- 
curred on  the  estate. 

David  Meade  (3)  was  a  school-friend  of 
Aaron  Burr,  and  after  the  latter  was  put  under 
arrest  and  surveillance  for  the  Blennerhassett 
treason  Colonel  Meade's  influence  with  the 
state  authorities  obtained  permission  for  the 
suspected  man  to  spend  three  weeks  at  Chau- 


La  Chaumiere  du  Prairie  89 

miere,  the  Colonel's  son  pledging  himself  for 
his  safe-keeping.  He  was  accompanied  by  his 
confederate  and  dupe,  Blennerhassett.  The 
two  were  among  the  witnesses  of  the  marriage 
of  Elizabeth  Meade  to  Judge  Creighton  of 
Chillicothe,  Ohio  ;  also  of  the  baptism  of  a 
granddaughter,  Elizabeth  Massie.  This  child 
became  Mrs.  W.  L.  Thompson  of  "  Sycamore," 
near  Louisville,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of 
Kentucky  homes. 

The  damask  table-cloth  used  at  the  wedding 
feast,  to  which  Burr  and  Blennerhassett  sat 
down,  is  still  treasured  in  the  family. 

Another  of  the  granddaughters,  Mrs.  Anna 
Meade  Letcher,  has  a  story  of  a  yet  more  val- 
uable memento  of  the  memorable  visit  paid  to 
Chaumiere  by  the  conspirators  : 

"  There  is  in  the  family  a  very  antique  mirror  before 
which  Aaron  Burr  sat,  and  had  his  hair  powdered,  and  his 
queue  arranged  to  suit  his  vain  and  fastidious  taste,  before 
entering  the  drawing-room  to  use  all  his  artful  fascina- 
tions upon  the  ladies,  whether  handsome  or  homely,  young 
or  old,  bright  and  entertaining,  or  dull.  He  never  forgot 
his  policy  to  charm  and  beguile  all  who  came  into  his 
presence." 

Colonel  Meade  had  passed  from  the  home 
he   had    made   an    Eden    to    the    fairer    Land 


90         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

whither  his  devoted  wife  had  preceded  him  by 
six  months  of  earthly  time,  when  Edward 
Everett  paid  a  visit  to  Chaumiere.  Mrs. 
Letcher's  mother,  then  a  young  girl,  rowed 
him  across  the  miniature  lake  in  her  boat, 
11  Ellen  Douglas."  The  high-bred  gentleman 
paid  a  graceful  compliment  to  the  "  Lady  of 
the  Lake,"  a  sobriquet  she  retained  until  her 
marriage. 

"  Mr.  Everett  had  just  returned  from  a  long 
stay  abroad,  where  he  had  become  quite  a 
connoisseur  in  art,"  says  Mrs.  Letcher,  "and 
he  pronounced  the  art-collection  of  Chaumiere, 
'though  small,  equal  in  merit  to  any  he  had 
seen  abroad." 

This  comprised  family  portraits  by  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds,  Hudson,  the  Sullys,  and  other  artists 
of  international  reputation.  Some  are  still 
treasured  intelligently  and  reverently  in  the 
family  connexion.  Others  passed,  after  the 
sale  of  the  homestead,  into  less  tender  hands. 
An  anecdote  whispered  among  the  descendants 
of  the  superb  old  patrician  has  to  do  with  the 
atrocious  desecration  of  one  historic  canvas  to 
the  ignominy  of  covering  a  meal-barrel,  until  it 
was  fairly  worn  out  with  much  using. 

Colonel  Meade  was  ninety-four  years  of  age 


COLONEL    DAVID    MEADE     AT   THE    AGE    OF   85. 

FROM    PAINTING   IN     POSSESSION    OF    E.     P.    WILLIAMS,    ESQ.,    OF   NEW    YORK. 


91 


La  Chaumiere  du  Prairie  93 

when  he  died.  His  son  David  (3)  had  not 
lived  to  see  his  thirtieth  year.  His  father  had 
borne  the  terrible  blow  to  love,  pride,  and  hope 
with  fortitude  amazing  to  all  but  those  who 
knew  him  best.  Not  even  to  them  did  he 
speak  of  what  the  death  of  his  noble  boy  was 
to  him.  Everything  was  to  have  been  David's, 
— "  Chaumiere,  paintings,  and  other  works  of 
art — the  magnificent  silver  plate,  the  trained 
house-servants  and  gardeners."  When  his  will 
was  opened  it  was  found  that  he  left  it  with 
his  surviving  children  to  divide  the  property  as 
they  deemed  best.  The  sole  proviso  was  that 
Chaumiere  should  be  kept  as  he  had  made  it 
for  three  years.  "  Dean  "  and  other  favourite 
servants  were  manumitted  by  the  master's  will. 
In  a  charming  letter  from  Mrs.  Letcher,  we 
have  the  rest  of  the  story  told  in  simple,  grace- 
ful wise,  upon  which  I  cannot  improve  : 

"  The  daughters  had  married,  and  my  mother's  mother, 
Mrs.  Charles  Willing  Byrd,  had  died  years  before,  and 
none  of  the  family  feeling  able  to  keep  up  the  place,  it 
was  thought  best  to  sell  it.  But  it  seemed  to  entail 
fatality  in  one  way  or  another  upon  those  who  have 
owned  it  since. 

The  Colonel  was  a  philosopher  of  philosophers,  and  as 
my  father  and  mother  said,  submitted  with  both  dignity 
and  grace  to  the  inevitable.     He  never  was  known  to 


94 


More  Colonial  Homesteads 


make  complaint,  but  bore  every  trial  with  Spartan  courage 
and  serenity — so  the  oft-told  story  that  he  pronounced  a 
curse  upon  the  home  should  it  pass  from  the  family,  has 
no  truth  for  foundation — 'though  believed  by  many  of 
the  superstitious  from  that  day  to  this." 

"  There  have  been  many  ghost  stories,  but  none  that 


2/.. 


WINQ  OF  CHAUMIERE  LEFT  STANDING  IN  1850. 


were  horrible,  only  of  pleasant  things  that  the  old  serv- 
ants and  housekeeper  and  the  superstitious  around 
would  see  and  hear.  The  housekeeper  came  from  Vir- 
ginia with  Col.  Meade,  and  was  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing members  of  that  large  household.  She  lived  to  be 
nearly  a  century  old,  and  I  remember  her  when  I  was  a 
small  child.  She  was  devoted  to  my  mother  and  stayed 
with  her  ;  her  name  was  Betsy  Miller,  and  Col.  Meade 


La  Chaumiere  du  Prairie  95 

knew  her  to  be  descended  from  the  Stuarts  of  Scotland 
who  came  to  Virginia  after  the  flight  and  exile  of  Charles 
the  Second.  She  and  the  servants  often  saw  Col.  Meade 
and  others  of  the  family  who  had  passed  away,  strolling 
in  the  grounds  ;  in  the  hedged  serpentine  walk,  which 
wound  around  the  grounds  three  miles,  or  rowing  on  the 
lake,  or  sitting,  reading  in  a  summer-house  under  bowers 
of  honeysuckle  and  running  roses — then,  at  sunset  he 
would  be  seen  wending  his  way  up  the  winding  walk  to 
the  '  octagon  hall  '  where  tea  was  served  in  summer. — 
These  and  many  other  stories  I  eagerly  drank  in,  in  my 
childhood,  and  often,  too,  when  with  Betsy  and  the  serv- 
ants who  took  her  to  the  grounds  when  she  was  too 
feeble  to  go  alone,  I  imagined  /  saw  my  grandfather 
and  others,  as  they  did. 

"  On  the  day  of  the  sale  a  large  crowd  collected  to 
hear  lovely  '  Chaumiere '  cried  off  to  a  coarse,  vulgar 
man.  So  surprised  and  indignant  was  everyone  that  a 
murmur  of  disapproval  was  heard,  and  soon  after  was 
seen  in  large  letters  on  the  pleasure-houses  all  through 
the  grounds — Paradise  Lost.  This  so  enraged  the  pur- 
chaser that  he  determined  to  make  these  words  true.  In 
less  than  a  week  the  beautiful  grounds  were  filled  with 
horses,  cattle,  sheep,  and  filthy  swine.  He  felled  the 
finest  trees  in  the  grounds  and  park,  cut  down  the 
hedges — in  fine,  committed  such  vandalism  as  has  never 
been  heard  of  in  this  country.  He  pulled  down  some 
of  the  prettiest  rooms  in  the  house,  stored  grain  in  others 
and  made  ruins  of  all  the  handsome  pleasure-houses  and 
bridges  through  the  grounds.  He  only  kept  the  place 
long  enough  to  destroy  it. 

"  The  next  purchaser  found  Chaumiere  but  a  wreck  of 


96 


More  Colonial  Homesteads 


beauty.  It  seems  as  if  Providence  decreed  that  the  glory 
of  the  beloved  beautiful  old  '  Chaumiere '  should  depart 
with  the  name  of  '  Meade.'  " 

All  that  remained  to  the  "  next  purchaser  " 
aforesaid  was  the  octagon  drawing-room  given 
in  our  picture,  the  hall,  and  heaps  of  founda- 
tion-stones where 
once  arose  the  most 
lordly  part  of  the 
noble  pile. 

Even  these  have 
been  swept  away 
within  the  last  quar- 
ter-century ;  all  the 
pleasant  places  born 
of  the  brain  of  the 
founder,  and  matured  into  beauty  by  his  taste 
and  wealth,  are  laid  waste.  Small  wonder  is  it 
that  the  story  of  the  curse  pronounced  upon 
the  place,  should  it  ever  pass  into  alien  hands, 
should  go  hand-in-hand  with  the  marvellous 
tales  of  departed  splendours. 

Note. — An  interesting  legend  of  the  Meade  family  is 
connected  with  the  chained  falcons  seen  in  the  coat  of 
arms  given  herewith. 

According  to  this,  a  pair  of  these  birds,  — foreign  to 
this  region, — built  a  nest  upon  a  crag  overlooking  the  sea 


MEADE  COAT  OF  ARMS. 


La  Chaumiere  du  Prairie  97 

in  a  lonely  quarter  of  the  Meade  estate.  Two  boys  of 
the  house  discovered  the  nest  and,  to  make  sure  of  the 
young  birds  when  they  should  be  hatched,  ensnared  the 
old  ones  with  light  chains.  The  prize  was  forgotten  for 
some  days,  and  when  the  thoughtless  lads  revisited  the 
crag,  they  found  the  parent  birds  dead  of  starvation. 
The  callow  nestlings  were  alive,  having  been  nourished 
by  father  and  mother  upon  blood  drained  from  their 
own  hearts. 
7 


IV 


MORVEN,    THE  STOCKTON  HOMESTEAD, 
PRINCETON,  NEW  JERSEY 

IN  the  parish  register  of  Cookham,  Berkshire, 
England,  are  recorded  the  births  and 
deaths  of  several  generations  of  Washingtons 
and  Balls,  the  lineal  ancestors  of  the  man  who 
gave  independent  being  to  this  nation.  From 
the  established  fact  that  Augustine  Washing- 
ton visited  England  in  1729,  to  arrange  for 
the  transfer  of  British  property  to  which 
he  had  fallen  heir,  and  the  almost  certainty 
that  he  then  and  there  met  and  married  Amer- 
ican-born Mary  Ball, — a  sojourner,  like  him- 
self, in  the  fatherland, — some  writers  assume 
that  their  son  George  first  saw  the  light  in 
English  Berkshire. 

The  hypothesis  is  summarily  disposed  of  by 
our  first  President's  written  declaration, — 
George,  eldest  son  of  Augustine,  by  the  second 

98 


Morven  99 

marriage,  was  born  in  Westmoreland  County 
(  Virginia)  ye  nth  Day  of  February,  ifJ31/2  • 

John  Washington,  the  great-grandfather  of 
George,  was  one  of  the  malcontent  loyalists 
who  could  not  breathe  in  the  raw  air  of  the 
Protectorate.  In  1657,  he  sailed,  with  his 
brother  Lawrence,  for  the  still  loyal  Old  Do- 
minion, and  founded  a  new  family  home  in 
Westmoreland  on  the  Potomac  River. 

One  of  the  unexpected  coincidences  that 
leap  out  at  us, — as  from  hiding  between  the 
pages  of  the  history  we  believed  was  familiar 
to  us  long  ago,  and  which  have,  henceforth, 
the  vividness  of  current  events,  bringing  us 
face  to  face  with  old  acquaintances,  ranging 
side  by  side  people  we  have  never  until  now 
linked  in  our  thoughts, — is  that  which  syn- 
chronises John  Washington's  emigration  from 
Great  Britain  to  America  with  that  of  Richard 
Stockton.  A  backward  glance  along  the  an- 
cestral line  of  the  Stocktons  carries  the  in- 
teresting parallel  into  a  yet  more  venerable 
past.  In  the  Cookham  Parish  church  (per- 
haps the  same  in  which  Augustine  Washington 
was,  four  centuries  thereafter,  to  espouse  the 
blue-eyed  Virginia  girl)  is  an  age-battered 
stone  : 


ioo        More  Colonial  Homesteads 


"  Jfojcejetf  to  #je  mzmovxj  of  .Six;  gdwravtf 
MtocMon,  'giXgxvimof  %}zvu&%Umt  and  ©aitim, 
po&z&s&zil  xrf  ajje  House  of  onx  %*&%z  at 
^istr0Vjou0lx/f 

Sir  Edward's  forbears  were  "  anciently  Lords 
of  the  Manor  of  Stockton,  which  they  held 
under  the  Barony  of  Malpas,  in  the  County  of 
Cheshire.  David  de  Stockton  inherited  the 
Manor  of  Stockton  from  his  father  about  the 
year  1250,  in  the  reign  of  King  Henry  the 
Third."  1 

From  the  many  mu- 
ral memorials  of  the 
race  still  extant  in  Eng- 
land, I  select  an  old 
Latin  epitaph  upon  a 
brass  plate  in  Malpas 
church,  set  above  the 
dust  of  V  Owen  Stock- 
ton, Gentleman."  A 
clumsy  translation  runs 
— or  stumbles — after 
this  wise : 


STOCKTON  COAT-OF-ARMS. 


"%t  Mtocktotms,  zozx  a  most  jgpewtle  vxo+ 
mute*  xrf  ptKJCtf  Ixzxz  laid  nn&zx  ttxe  liavd 
ma*Ms,  jcnjoij  pjeajce. 

1  History  of  the  Stockton  Family,  by  John  W.  Stockton. 


Morven  101 

11  gfte  tMvtietlx  ajea*  xrf  roij  fce*ea*rement " 

(the  term  of  his  widowerhood),  u  of  at*  UUblzmxsJxZtl 

rejmtatixru,  &ZZ&  m%  off  syncing  flonxi&MnQ, 
mg  fattier  dead. 

"  Departing  §  ftaxre  left  freltittd  roe  as  roattij 
tears  as  tlxou^lx  pease  weve  aftout  txr  leave w 

(the  earth). 

11  %  xrfrtaitx  ttxe  pxomi&zti,  reward  in  tJxt 
peacef  nl  Ueatretxs. 

"Jgtxe  sxrtt,  wzXl*b&xnr  lias  erected  ttxis  tcr 
tfte  f attxer  wellborn  wftjo  died  §ejcerofrer  2nd, 
JiJ.  1610/' 

Four  years  anterior  to  the  demise  of  Owen 
Stockton,  Gentleman,  his  grandson  Richard, 
"  the  sonne  of  John  Stockton  of  the  Parish  of 
Malpas,"  was  baptised  in  the  Parish  church. 

This  Richard  (I.)  was  thirty-seven  years  old 
when  John,  his  father,  died  in  1643.  This 
would  make  him  a  man  of  fifty  when,  like  the 
Washington  brothers,  he  found  longer  resid- 
ence in  Cromwell-ridden  England  unsafe  or 
unpleasant, — most  likely  both, — and  embarked 
with  his  wife  and  children  for  a  freer  country. 
He  landed  in  New  York  in  1657  or  1658. 

A  portion  of  the  ample  fortune  he  contrived 
to  bring  away  with  him  was  invested  in  Long 
Island,  then  in  New  Jersey,  lands.  A  tract 
over  two  miles  in  length  and  one  in  width,  in 


102        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Burlington  County,  was  divided  at  his  death 
between  his  three  sons,  Richard,  John,  and  Job. 

Richard  (II.)  Stockton  was  a  man  grown  at 
the  date  of  emigration,  and  so  much  his  own 
master,  when  his  father  removed  from  Long 
Island  to  Burlington,  as  to  act  upon  his  pre- 
ference for  a  separate  residence  in  another 
part  of  the  State.  He  lived  for  a  short  time  at 
Piscataway,  settling  subsequently  upon  a  tract 
of  six  thousand  acres  of  farming  lands  bought 
from  William  Penn,  and  nearer  the  north- 
ern part  of  the  to-be  State  of  New  Jersey.  He 
called  the  immense  plantation  "  Stony  Brook," 
and  devoted  himself  assiduously  to  redeeming 
it  from  its  native  wildness.  Collecting  around 
him  a  colony  of  fellow  exiles,  he  set  about 
felling  forests,  clearing,  draining,  and  cultivat- 
ing level  reaches  of  virgin  meadows,  and  erect- 
ing comfortable^  houses  for  the  occupancy  of 
European  families. 

Until  he  and  his  associates  broke  ground  for 
the  settlement  afterward  renamed  "  Princeton," 
no  white  man  had  invaded  the  wilderness.  The 
axe  of  the  explorer  had  never  disturbed  the 
brooding  stillness  of  the  primeval  forest ;  not 
afoot  of  the  soil  had  had  any  other  owner  than 
the  nomads  who  called  the  continent  their  free- 


Morven  103 

hold.  Richard  Stockton's  active  pioneer  life 
came  to  a  close  in  1 709. 

In  the  partition  of  what  was,  by  now,  a  valu- 
able estate,  he  devised  the  house  he  had  built 
late  in  life  as  a  homestead  to  his  fifth  and  ap- 
parently his  favourite  child,  John.  This  viola- 
tion of  the  laws  of  primogeniture  threw  his 
eldest  and  name-son  Richard  (III.)  out  of  the 
natural  order  of  succession.  We  note,  further- 
more, with  unsatisfied  curiosity,  that  the 
slighted  Richard  received  but  three  hundred 
acres  of  land,  while  each  of  the  juniors  had 
five  hundred.  Tradition  is  silent  as  to  the 
young  man's  offence,  and  his  deportment  under 
what,  to  one  of  English  birth  and  prejudices, 
was  a  more  grievous  cross  than  we,  with  our 
free-and-easy  Republican  notions,  can  fully  ap- 
preciate. With  true  feminine  (and  illogical) 
partisanship  of  the  child  of  "  whose  nose  a 
bridge  was  made," — to  borrow  a  folk-phrase, — 
I  decline  to  pass  over  Richard  Desdichado  in 
the  enumeration  of  the  Stocktons  who  bore  the 
Christian  name  more  or  less  worthily.  What- 
ever may  have  been  his  deficiencies,  mental, 
moral,  or  spiritual — he  stands  in  this  humble 
chronicle  as  Richard  III. 

His   mother,  Mrs.   Susannah  Stockton,  had 


104        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

"  the  use  of  the  house  and  improvements  dur- 
ing her  natural  life,  with  the  use  of  all  the 
negro  slaves  except  Daniel,"  who  was  be- 
queathed to  the  testators  brother-in-law, 
Philip  Phillips.  "  Each  of  his  sons,  as  he 
came  of  age,  was  to  have  a  slave." 

However  warm  may  be  our  sympathies  with 
Desdichado,  we  must  admit  that  John  Stock- 
ton's character  and  career  amply  justified  his 
father's  choice  of  a  successor  in  the  proprietor- 
ship of  the  homestead  and  all  pertaining 
thereto.  No  early  citizen  of  New  Jersey  exer- 
cised a  more  marked  and  wholesome  influence 
upon  her  history  then  in  making.  He  was,  by 
Royal  appointment,  a  Judge  of  the  Court  of 
Common  Pleas  ;  when  the  project  of  founding 
a  university  of  learning  within  the  precincts  of 
the  State  was  bruited,  he  wrought  with  pen, 
tongue,  and  fortune  to  secure  the  establishment 
of  the  same  at  Princeton,  eventually  succeed- 
ing in  the  effort.  As  an  elder  in  the  infant 
Presbyterian  Church  of  the  Colonies,  he  was 
a  power  as  well  as  a  blessing. 

Each  of  the  eight  children  who  survived  him 
was  an  honour  to  the  father,  and  to  the  woman 
who  was  his  partner  in  every  worthy  deed. 
In  1729,  he  had  married  Miss  Abigail  Phillips, 


Morven  105 

of  whom  we  have  little  information  "  except 
that  she  was  a  devoted  Presbyterian,"  says  our 
chronicler.  Four  sons  and  as  many  daughters 
lived  out  her  unwritten  biography.  Presby- 
terian Princeton  owes  more  than  has  been  set 
down  in  her  annals  to  her  ministry  to  him  who 
stood  confessed  in  his  generation  as  the  best 
friend  and  ablest  counsellor  of  Church  and 
College. 

John  Stockton's  daughter,  Hannah,  married 
the  Honorable  Elias  Boudinot,  a  name  of  dis- 
tinction in  state  and  national  history  :  Abigail 
became  the  wife  of  Captain  Pintard,  her  sister 
Susannah  wedding  his  brother  Louis.  Rebecca 
married  Rev.  William  Tennent  of  Monmouth 
County,  a  man  eminent  for  piety  and  eloquence. 
His  extraordinary  return  to  life  and  conscious- 
ness after  a  trance  of  four  days'  duration,  phy- 
sicians and  friends  supposing  him  to  be  dead, 
is  one  of  the  noteworthy  psychological  phe- 
nomena of  the  last  century. 

To  Richard  (IV.),  eldest  son  of  John,  was 
left  the  Princeton  homestead  with  the  surround- 
ing plantation.  John,  the  second, son,  entered 
the  Royal  Navy,  rose  rapidly  to  the  rank  of 
Captain,  with  the  command  of  a  vessel,  and 
died  at  sea  at  a  comparatively  early  age. 


106        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

The  third  son,  Philip,  was  ordained  to  the 
ministry  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  1778, 
and  presumably  engaged  in  the  active  duties  of 
his  profession  in  the  vicinity  of  Princeton,  as  he 
bought  "  Castle  Howard"  in  that  town  about 
1  785,  and  made   it  his  permanent  residence. 

Next  to  Richard  the  Heir,  Samuel  Witham 
Stockton,  the  youngest  of  the  four  sons,  has 
left  the  most  brilliant  record.  He  was  gradu- 
ated at  Nassau  Hall  in  1767,  and  in  1774  was 
sent  to  the  Courts  of  Russia  and  Austria  as 
Secretary  of  the  American  Commission.  He 
acted  as  Secretary  of  the  New  Jersey  Conven- 
tion called  in  1787  to  ratify  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  and  in  1 794  was  made  Secre- 
tary of  State  in  New  Jersey,  He  was  killed, 
a  year  afterwards,  by  a  fall  from  his  carriage. 

When  Richard,  of  the  fourth  generation  of 
American  Stocktons,  came  to  his  New  Jersey 
principality  in  1757,  he  was  in  the  very  prime 
of  early  and  vigorous  manhood.  He  had  been 
admitted  to  the  Bar  three  years  earlier  and 
about  the  same  time  married  Anice  Boudinot, 
sister  of  his  brother-in-law,  the  Honourable 
Elias  Boudinot,  a  double  alliance  that  linked 
two  chief  families  of  the  future  Commonwealth 
together  as  with  hooks  of  tempered  steel. 


Morven  107 

Mrs.  Stockton  was  a  striking-  feature  in  the 
best  society  of  her  times.  From  her  French 
ancestors  she  inherited  her  brunette  beauty 
and  the  vivacit]  of  speech  and  manner  that 
made  her  companionship  a  continual  charm.   To 


ANICE   STOCKTON. 

FROM  ORIGINAL  PORTRAIT  IN  POSSESSION  OF  MRS.  MCGILL. 

none  of  her  friends  and  admirers  was  she  more 
bewitching-  than  to  the  lover-husband.  The 
poetic  ardour  of  a  courtship  conducted  in  the 
most  approved  style  of  a  romantic  age,  was 


io8         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

never  abated  by  time  and  intimate  association. 
Their  married  life  was  the  prettiest  of  pastorals, 
in  the  midst  of  gayeties,  and  in  the  thick  of 
later  storms.  As  long-  as  they  both  lived,  they 
used  in  their  private  correspondence  the  noms 
de plume  assumed  when,  as  lovers,  they  wrote 
poems  dedicated  to  one  another.  Mrs.  Stock- 
ton preferred  "  Emilia  "  to  her  own  quaint  and 
sweeter  appellation,  and  her  Richard  was  "  Lu- 
cius." It  was  a  fashion  of  times  more  artificial 
than  ours  when  the  language  of  pen  and  tongue 
was  more  ornate  than  our  realistic  speech.  The 
custom,  affected  and  fantastic  in  the  abstract, 
steals  a  mellowed  grace  from  age  and  the  de- 
tails of  a  life-long  love-story. 

The  homestead  erected  by  Richard  the 
Second  was  a  commodious  and  highly  respect- 
able family  residence  under  the  management 
of  Judge  John  Stockton.  John's  son  Richard, 
aided  by  the  exquisite  taste  of  his  "  Emilia," 
made  mansion  and  grounds  the  most  beautiful 
in  the  State.  Until  "  Emilia  "  became  mistress 
of  the  fair  domain  it  was  known  as  "  the  Stock- 
ton Place," — sometimes  as  "  Constitution  Hill"; 
the  name  applied  to  a  large  tract  of  rolling  land, 
including  the  homestead  grounds.  Mrs.  Rich- 
ard Stockton  gave  it  the  name  it  now  bears. 


Morven  109 

Ossian's  Poems  were  just  then  the  rage  in 
the  English  reading-world.  Macpherson  had 
set  Scotch  reviewers  by  the  ears,  and  infuriated 
Dr.  Johnston  to  a  bellow  of  protest  by  pub- 
lishing Temora  in  1 763,  and  a  general  collec- 
tion of  the  Poems  of  Ossian  in  1 765.  Both 
compilations  are  regarded  by  our  matter-of- 
fact  book-lovers  (who  yet  profess  to  under- 
stand Browning  and  Carlyle  !)  as  incoherent 
rubbish  of  dubious  parentage.  "  Poems  "  and 
putative  author  would  have  been  forgotten 
and  clean  out  of  the  minds  of  readers  and 
reviewers,  fifty  years  ago,  but  for  half-a-dozen 
phrases  that  flash  like  jewels  in  a  dust-heap. 
Ossian,  the  son  and  panegyrist  of  Fingal,  King 
of  Morven,  was  not  merely  read,  but  quoted, 
by  our  great-grandmothers.  .  They  hung  en- 
tranced over,  and  read  aloud,  in  summer  noons 
and  winter  midnights,  what  went  before  and 
came  after  such  lines  as, 

"  The  music  of  Carryl  is  like  the  memory  of  departed 
joys — pleasant  and  mournful  to  the  soul." 

Fingal, — "  grand,  gloomy,  and  peculiar  " — 
the,  to  our  taste,  highly  bombastic  hero  of  Te- 
mora and  other  of  the  unrhymed  translations, 
found  signal  favour  in  Anice  Stockton's  sight. 


no        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

She  christened  the  home  of  her  bridehood 
"  Morven,"  the  soft  music  of  the  name  com- 
mending it  to  her  ears,  as  to  ours.  She  gave 
personal  supervision  to  the  grading  of  lawns, 
planting  of  shrubbery  and  avenues  of  trees, 
and  the  laying-out  of  parterres  and  "  pleas- 
aunces."  During  her  gracious  reign  Morven 
gained  the  reputation  for  superb  hospitality  it 
has  never  lost. 

Sons  and  daughters  were  born  to  the  per- 
fectly mated  pair,  frolicked  in  the  shaded 
pleasure-grounds  all  day  long,  said  their  prayers 
at  their  mother's  knee,  and  were  folded  nightly 
under  the  broad  rooftree.  They  were  nurtured, 
according  to  Presbyterian  traditions,  in  the 
fear  of  God  and  trained  to  fear  naught  else 
but  failure  in  obedience  to  the  law  of  God 
and  the  law  of  love  to  man.  Twelve  happy, 
busy  years  went  by,  and  the  first  separation 
had  to  be  faced  and  endured — this,  too,  for 
duty's  sake.  Public  and  private  business 
called  Mr.  Stockton  to  England.  A  Presi- 
dent, able  and  learned,  was  wanted  for  the 
College  of  New  Jersey  ;  the  subject  of  paper 
currency  in  the  Colonies  was  growing  from 
gravity  into  perplexity  ;  yet  more  serious 
questions  were  seething  in  the  minds  of  embryo 


Morven  1 1 1 

statesmen  and  incorruptible  patriots  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  ruffling  the  tempers 
of  officials  in  the  Home  Government. 

In  1766,  Mr.  Stockton  sailed  for  Great 
Britain  after  a  vain  endeavour  to  induce  his 
wife  to  accompany  him.  Both  parents  must 
not  leave  the  children,  she  represented  mildly, 
but  firmly.  As  sensibly  and  heroically  she 
forwarded  the  preparations  for  his  voyage  and 
long  absence. 

I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  looking  over  a 
MS.  volume  of  letters,  written  during  the 
separation  of  sixteen  months  that  tried  the 
hopes  and  spirits  of  the  faithful  pair.  They 
were  copied  out  carefully,  after  Richard  Stock- 
ton's death,  by  his  widow  for  their  daughter, 
Mrs.  Field, — typewriting  being  among  the 
then-uninvented  arts.  The  priceless  archives 
of  wedded  devotion  stronger  than  time  and 
death  are  now  in  the  possession  of  Mrs. 
Chancellor  McGill  of  New  Jersey,  a  great- 
granddaughter  of  Richard  and  Anice  Stock- 
ton. 

Addressing  her  "  in  the  old,  sweet  way  "  as 
"  Emilia,"  the  traveller  writes  of  "a  charming 
collection  of  bulbous  roots  "  he  is  getting  to- 
gether to  send   her  as  soon  as  the  American 


1 12         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

spring  opens.  "But  I  really  believe" — he 
breaks  off  to  say  proudly — M  you  have  as  fine 
tulips  and  hyacinths  in  your  little  garden  as 
almost  any  in  England." 

In  another  letter: — "Suppose  in  the  next 
place  I  inform  you  that  I  design  a  ride  to 
Twickenham,  the  latter  end  of  next  month, 
principally  to  view  Mr.  Pope's  garden  and 
grotto,  and  that  I  shall  take  with  me  a  gentle- 
man who  draws  well,  to  lay  down  an  exact 
plan  of  the  whole."  He  has  high  hopes  that 
he  has  prevailed  upon  Dr.  Witherspoon  of 
Paisley,  Scotland,  to  accept  the  Presidency 
of  the  College  ;  he  has  attended  the  Queen's 
birthnight  ball,  and  describes  it  in  lively  terms  ; 
he  is  uneasy  over  probable  political  compli- 
cations. 

"  Mr.  Charles  Townsend,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer, informed  the  House  last  week  that  he  was  pre- 
paring a  scheme  to  lay  before  them  for  raising  money 
from  the  Colonies  ;  urged  the  necessity  of  sending  more 
troops  there,  and  the  propriety  and  justice  of  their  sup- 
porting them.  I  exceedingly  fear  that  we  shall  get 
together  by  the  ears,  and  God  only  knows  what  is  to 
be  the  issue.  .  .  .  Wherever  I  can  serve  my  native 
country,  I  leave  no  occasion  untried.  Dear  America  ! 
thou  sweet  retreat  from  greatness  and  corruption  !  In 
thee  I  choose  to  live  and  die  !  " 


Morven  113 

These  are  sentences  which  forecast  darkly 
the  coming  conflict,  full  of  fate  for  him 
and  his. 

We  recognise  a  familiar  name  in  that  of 
Lord  Adam  Gordon  in  whose  care,  it  may  be 
recollected,  Sir  William  Johnson  of  Johnson 
Hall  sent  his  son  and  heir  to  England  "  to  get 
rid  of  the  rusticity  of  a  home  education." 
The  Scottish  peer  would  seem  to  have  had 
an  especial  penchant  for  American  boys. 

"  He  inquired  very  particularly  after  you 
and  your  dear  little  boy,"  writes  the  absent 
husband,  making  it  evident  that  Lord  Adam 
had  been  a  guest  at  Morven,  as  well  as  at 
Johnson  Hall,  while  in  America. 

The  fond  father  bids  the  mother 

"  Kiss  my  dear,  sweet  children  for  me,  and  give  rather 
the  hardest  squeeze  to  my  only  son,  if  you  think  it  right. 
If  not,  divide  it  equally  without  any  partiality.     .     .     . 

"  I  am  entertained  with  the  grandeur  and  vanity 
of  these  kingdoms,  as  you  wished  me  to  be,  and,  as  you 
know  I  am  curious,  new  objects  are  continually  striking 
my  attention  and  engaging  my  fancy  ;   but 

'One  thought  of  thee  puts  all  the  pomp  to  flight  ; 
Priests,  tapers,  temples,  swim  before  my  sight.' 

Let  me  tell  you  that   all  the  grandeur  and  elegance  that 
I  have  yet  seen  in  these  kingdoms,  in  different  families, 


ii4        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

where  I  have  been  received  with  great  politeness,  serves 
but  to  increase  the  pleasure  I  have,  for  some  years,  en- 
joyed in  your  society.  I  see  not  a  sensible,  obliging, 
tender  wife,  but  the  image  of  my  dear  Emilia  is  full  in 
view.  I  see  not  a  haughty,  imperious  dame,  but  1  re- 
joice that  the  partner  of  my  life  is  so  much  the  opposite. 
But  why  need  I  talk  so  gallantly?  You  know  my  ideas 
long  ago,  as  well  as  you  would  were  I  to  write  a  volume 
upon  the  endearing  topic.     .     .     . 

"  Here  I  saw  all  your  Duchesses  of  Ancaster,  Hamil- 
ton, etc.,  so  famous  for  their  beauty.  But  here,  I  have 
done  with  this  subject  !  for  I  had  rather  ramble  with  you 
along  the  rivulets  of  Morven  or  Red  Hill,  and  see  the 
rural  sports  of  the  chaste  little  frogs,  than  again  be  at  a 
birthnight  ball." 

After  his  return  to  America,  and  Morven, 
he  was  appointed  to  a  seat  in  the  Royal  Coun- 
cil of  the  Provinces,  and  to  a  judgeship  in  the 
Supreme  Court.  These  and  other  honours 
made  the  severance  of  his  allegiance  to  the 
Crown  a  terrible  wrench  for  man  and  public 
official. 

The  crucial  test  of  loyalty  and  of  conscience 
was  applied  on  the  4th  of  July,  1776,  and  sent 
his  name  down  to  us  as  "  The  Signer." 

His  eldest  daughter,  Julia,  was,  by  now,  mar- 
ried to  Dr.  Benjamin  Rush,  of  Philadelphia, 
already  eminent  in  his  profession.  The  two 
affixed  their  names  on  the  same  day  to  the 


■ 


Morven  117 

Declaration  of  Independence.  Indeed,  the 
family  connexion  presented  a  united  front  in 
this  crisis  of  national  history.  His  brothers, 
Philip  and  Samuel,  and  their  brother-in-law, 
Elias  Boudinot,  were  zealous  and  consistent 
patriots  throughout  the  war. 

A  New  Jersey  historian  is  enthusiastic  over 
the  honour  reflected  upon  Princeton  by  the 
fact  that  two  of  her  citizens  are  upon  the  im- 
mortal roll  of  honour  : 

"  Dr.  Witherspoon  was  the  acting  pastor  of  the  Pres- 
byterian Church,  and  Mr.  Stockton  a  member  of  it.  Dr. 
Witherspoon  was  president  of  the  College,  and  Mr. 
Stockton  was  a  trustee  and  a  graduate  of  the  same. 

"  What  other  little  town,  in  our  whole  country,  was  so 
honoured  as  to  have  had  two  of  her  citizens,  and  such 
distinguished  ones  as  these  were,  to  sign  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  ? " 

The  cloud,  big  with  fate  to  two  nations,  was 
to  burst  with  awful  fury  and  suddenness  upon 
Morven.  When  her  master  pledged  "  life,  for- 
tune, and  sacred  honour"  for  his  fulfilment  of 
the  obligations  entered  into  on  our  first  "  In- 
dependence Day,"  he  virtually  signed  the  for- 
feiture of  the  first  two.  After  the  adjournment 
of  Congress  in  Philadelphia  he  returned  to  his 
Princeton  home,  never  so  fair  before  as  now. 


n8        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

In  almost  twenty  years  of  proprietorship,  he 
had  brought  the  interior  and  the  environment 
of  the  mansion  to  a  degree  of  luxury  and 
beauty  impossible  in  a  new  country  unless 
wealth,  taste,  and  foreign  travel  combine  to 
accumulate  pictures  and  furniture,  and  to  stock 
grounds  with  exotic  trees  and  plants.  The 
line  of  historic  catalpas  set  out  by  him  along 
the  front  of  the  lawn  were  but  saplings  then, 
yet  were  in  flower  on  that  memorable  July 
day  when  Richard  Stockton  alighted  from,  his 
travelling  carriage  at  his  own  door  and  told 
his  wife  what  he  had  done  and  what  might  be 
the  consequences. 

Catalpas,  and  the- long  avenue  of  elms  in 
which  we  stroll  to-day,  were  leafless  when 
news  was  hurriedly  brought  to  Princeton  that 
a  body  of  British  soldiers  was  marching  to- 
wards the  town.  Silver  was  buried  in  the 
frozen  earth  ;  papers  and  other  portable  valu- 
ables were  huddled  into  portmanteaux ;  the 
horses  and  roomy  chariot  were  ordered  for 
instant  flight. 

An  incident  related  by  Mr.  J.  W.  Stockton 
must  not  be  omitted  from  this  part  of  our 
story.  Mrs.  Stockton  had  her  husband's  un- 
bounded   confidence.      His    private,    and    yet 


Morven  119 

more  important  public,  correspondence  passed 
through  her  hands  for  approval,  for  revision, 
and  for  sealing.  She  was  privy  to  the  fact 
that  certain  important  documents  relating  to 
public  affairs  and  involving  the  liberty,  if  not 
the  lives,  of  those  by  whom  they  were  written, 
had  been  deposited  in  "  Whig  Hall,"  Prince- 
ton. In  the  haste,  confusion,  and  alarm  of 
the  flitting  from  Morven,  the  intrepid  woman 
recollected  the  papers,  and  taking  no  one  into 
her  confidence,  ran  alone  through  byways  to 
the  Hall,  secured  the  treasonable  correspond- 
ence, and  with  her  own  hands  secreted  them 
in  the  grounds  of  her  home.  Some  say  they 
were  buried  ;  others,  that  they  were  hidden  in 
a  hollow  tree.  In  recognition  of  these  and 
other  services  rendered  to  the  organisation  dur- 
ing the  Revolution,  she  was  made  a  member 
of  the  American  Whig  Society.  "  This  is  the 
only  instance  in  which  a  lady  has  been  in- 
itiated into  the  mysteries  of  that  literary 
brotherhood." 

Richard,  the  eldest  son,  a  lad  of  twelve,  was, 
singularly  enough,  as  it  appears  to  us,  left 
behind  when  the  rest  of  the  family  quitted 
Morven.  "  In  care  of  a  trustworthy  old  serv- 
ant," is  an  explanatory  phrase  not  quite  satis- 


i2o       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

factory  to  those  who  know  nothing  more  than 
the  bare  circumstance  that  father,  mother,  and 
the  other  children  sought  refuge  in  the  house 
of  Mr.  John  Covenhoven,  thirty  miles  distant, 
in  Monmouth  County.  It  may  have  been 
that  the  boy's  occupation  of  the  home  was 
meant  to  cover  some  technical  point  relative 
to  the  absolute  desertion  of  the  premises. 
There  was  no  danger  of  personal  violence  to 
him.  Cornwallis  was  with  the  advancing  forces, 
and  he  was  too  brave  a  gentleman  to  make  war 
upon  children.  One  of  the  dramatic  episodes 
of  the  arrival  of  the  British  company  at  the 
homestead  must  have  been  the  apparition  of 
the  always  dauntless  son  of  the  house  where 
they  had  expected  to  see  no  one.  Morven 
was  Lord  Corn  wall  is's  headquarters.  He 
occupied  it  for  a  month,  sleeping  in  the  spa- 
cious bedchamber  above  the  drawing-room.  In 
leaving,  he  gave  the  place  over  to  the  wanton 
depredations  of  his  men.  The  stables  were 
emptied  of  stock  and  provender  ;  the  wine-cel- 
lars were  gutted  ;  the  furniture,  imported  and 
home-made,  was  hacked  into  firewood  ;  books 
and  pictures  fed  the  wanton  flames.  The 
portrait  of  Mr.  Stockton  painted  by  Copley, 
from  which  our  illustration  is  taken,  was  left 


Morven  121 

upon  the  wall,  but  mutilated.  A  gash  in  the 
throat  severed  the  head  from  the  body,  signi- 
fying the  opinion  of  a  humorous  trooper  as  to 
the  fate  deserved  by  the  rebellious  original. 
The  injury  has  been  neatly  repaired,  yet  the 


RICHARD   STOCKTON 

"  THE    SIGNER  " 


work  of  the  decapitating  blade  is  still  visible 
in  certain  lights. 

Princeton  was  occupied  by  the  British, 
December  7,  1776.  The  evicted  fugitives' 
dream  of  security  with  the  hospitable  Coven- 
hovens    was    rudely    dispelled,    a    few     nights 


122        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

afterward,  by  the  violent  entrance  of  a  posse 
of  armed  men  into  Mr.  Stockton's  chamber. 
The  secret  of  his  hiding-place  had  been  be- 
trayed by  neighbourhood  tories,  and  a  party 
was  sent  to  apprehend  him.  He  was  taken  to  a 
New  York  jail,  thence  transferred  to  a  prison-, 
ship,  and  treated  like  a  common  felon. 

The  Battle  of  Princeton  was  fought  January 
3,  1777.  The  British  were  driven  out  of  the 
town  and  ejected  from  the  College  in  which  a 
regiment  had  taken  shelter.  On  the  same  day 
Congress  passed  this  resolution  : 

"  Whereas,  Congress  hath  received  information  that 
Richard  Stockton,  Esq.,  of  New  Jersey,  and  a  member 
of  this  Congress,  hath  been  made  a  prisoner,  and  ignomi- 
niously  thrown  into  a  common  jail,  and  there  detained. 
.  .  .  Resolved,  that  General  Washington  be  directed 
to  make  immediate  inquiry  into  the  truth  of  this  report, 
and  if  he  finds  reason  to  believe  it  well-founded,  that  he 
send  to  General  Howe,  remonstrating  against  this  de- 
parture from  that  humane  procedure  which  has  marked 
the  conduct  of  these  States  to  prisoners  who  have  fallen 
into  their  hands,  and  to  know  of  General  Howe  whether 
he  chooses  this  shall  be  the  future  rule  for  treating  all 
such  on  both  sides  as  the  fortune  of  war  may  place  in  the 
hands  of  either  party." 

The  remonstrance  had  the  effect  of  releasing 
Mr.  Stockton  after  some  needless  delays.   The 


Morven  123 

tedious  weeks  of  confinement  in  the  middle 
of  an  unusually  inclement  winter  undermined 
his  health.  He  rejoined  his  family  at  Mor- 
ven, indomitable  in  spirit,  but  shattered  in 
constitution. 

The  homestead  was  a  yet  more  pitiable 
wreck.  In  evacuating  it,  the  soldiery  had 
fired  both  wings,  counting  upon  the  destruction 
of  the  entire  building.  The  conflagration  was 
arrested  before  the  main  body  of  the  house  was 
reached.  We  see  the  noble  halls  and  arched 
doorways,  the  drawing-room,  dining-room,  and 
the  bedchambers  above  these,  as  they  ^ere 
restored  by  the  owners,  grateful  to  find  thus 
much  of  the  original  edifice  standing. 

The  news  of  the  loss  of  her  library  was 
carried  to  Mrs.  Stockton  in  Monmouth.  She 
heard  it  with  the  fortitude  of  the  patriot,  the 
composure  of  the  thoroughbred. 

"  I  shall  not  complain  if  only  my  Bible  and 
Young's  Night  Thoughts  are  saved,"  was  her 
remark,  recalled  wonderingly  when,  as  the 
story  runs,  these  two  books  were  brought  to 
her,  upon  her  return  to  Princeton,  as  the  for- 
lorn relics  of  the  treasures  which  had  filled  her 
shelves. 

But  one   of   the    three    chests  of  valuables 


i24        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

buried  in  the  woods  had  escaped  the  marauders. 
The  location  of  the  others,  was  revealed  to  the 
soldiery  by  one  of  the  Morven  servants, — 
not,  we  are  glad  to  be  assured,  the  faithful 
majordomo  who  was  the  custodian  of  the 
young  master  left  at  home. 

Mrs.  McGill  prizes,  as  one  of  her  choicest 
heirlooms,  a  silver  coffee-pot,  disinterred  with 
other  plate  when  the  coast  was  cleared  oi 
robbers  and  traitors.  On  one  side  is  the 
Stockton  coat  of  arms,  but  without  the  lion 
rampant  that  appears  in  our  reproduction  of  the 
insignia.  Instead  of  the  king  of  .beasts  we 
have  upon  the  reverse  side  of  the  pot  the  figure 
of  a  dove.  Whether  the  gentle  bird  were  an 
innovation  upon  the  conventional  design,  or 
had  a  right  to  perch  upon  the  genealogical 
tree,  is  a  mooted  question  with  judges  of 
heraldic  emblems.  Anice  Stockton's  eyes 
may  have  glistened  tenderly  in  looking  upon 
the  symbol  of  peace  restored  to  heart  and 
dwelling  by  the  husband's  release  and  the 
blessedness  of  once  more  gathering  her  child- 
ren in  the  home  of  their  fathers. 

Peace  and  joy  were  short-lived.  It  became 
fatally  evident  before  the  ruined  wings  were 
rebuilt  and  Morven  was  refurnished,  that  the 


Morven  125 

mischief  wrought  by  freezing  nights  in  a  fire- 
less  cell,  wretched  fare,  and  the  unspeakable 
horrors  of  the  prison-ship  could  never  be 
remedied.  One  ailment  succeeded  another, 
each  in  evidence  of  poison  the  system  had  not 
strength  to  expel,  until  a  cancerous  affection 
laid  the  sufferer  aside  from  professional  labours 
and  social  enjoyments.  For  months  prior  to 
his  decease  he  never  lost  the  consciousness  of 
torturing  pain  except  when  under  the  influence 
of  opiates,  and  had  not  one  hour  of  natural  sleep. 
"  Not  one  soft  slumber  cheats  the  vital  pain," 

wrote  the  devoted  wife,  his  constant  nurse,  in 
the  vigil  of" December  jd,  1780."  The  im- 
promptu scribbled  beside  the  death-pillow 
"  cannot  " — says  Mr.  J.  W.  Stockton,  "  be 
given  as  a  specimen  of  her  poetic  abilities," 
— yet  some  stanzas  bring  scene  and  sufferers 
vividly  to  our  mental  vision. 

"While  through  the  silence  of  the  gloomy  night, 
My  aching  heart  reverb'rates  every  moan, 
As,  watching  by  the  glimmering  taper's  light, 
I  make  each  sigh,  each  mortal  pang  my  own. 

But  why  should  I  implore  Sleep's  friendly  aid  ? 

O'er  me,  her  poppies  shed  no  ease  impart  ; 
But  dreams  of  dear,  departing  joys  invade 

And  rack  with  fears  my  sad,  prophetic  heart. 


126        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

And  vain  is  prophecy — when  death's  approach 
Thro'  years  of  pain  hath  sapped  a  dearer  life, 

And  makes  me,  coward-like,  myself  reproach 
That  e  'er  I  knew  the  tender  name  of  wife. 

Oh  !  could  I  take  the  fate  to  him  assigned, 
And  leave  the  helpless  family  their  head  ! 

How  pleased,  how  peaceful,  to  my  lot  resigned, 
I  'd  quit  the  nurse's  station  for  the  bed  !  " 

Richard  the  Signer  died  at  Morven,  February 
28,  ij8i — is  an  entry  in  the  family  chronicle 
directly  beneath  the  lines  from  which  I  have 
quoted. 

His  funeral  sermon  was  based  upon  a  text 
selected  by  the  widowed  Anice  : 

I  have  seen  an  end  of  all  perfection,  but  Thy 
commandment  is  exceeding  broad. 

The  eulogium  pronounced  by  the  preacher, 
Dr.  Samuel  Stanhope  Smith,  Vice-President 
of  the  College  of  New  Jersey,  includes  this 
summary  of  Mr.  Stockton's  deportment,  char- 
acter, and  attainments. 

"  In  his  private  life  he  was  easy  and  graceful  in  his 
manners  ;  in  his  conversation  affable  and  entertaining, 
and  master  of  a  smooth  and  elegant  style,  even  in  his  or- 
dinary discourse.  As  a  man  of  letters  he  possessed  a 
superior  genius,  highly  cultivated  by  long  and  assiduous 
application.    His  researches  into  the  principles  of  morals 


Morven 


127 


and  religion  were  deep  and  accurate,  and  his  knowledge 
of  the  laws  of  his  country  extensive  and  profound.  He 
was  particularly  admired  for  a  flowing  and  persuasive 
eloquence  by  which  he  long  governed  in  the  Courts  of 
New  Jersey." 


V 


MORVEN,  THE  STOCKTON  HOMESTEAD, 
PRINCETON,  NEW  JERSEY 

{Concluded} 

"  The  History  of  Princeton,  by  John  Freling- 
huysen  Hageman,  Counsellor-at-Law,  Prince- 
ton, N.  J.,"  diverges  from  the  dusty  road  of 
historical  and  statistical  details  to  give  us  a 
passage  which  is  poetical  in  spirit  and  graceful 
in  wording  : 

"  The  long  row  of  large,  though  knotty  and  gnarled, 
catalpas,  still  in  vigorous  life,  along  the  whole  front  of 
Morven  on  Stockton  Street,  having  survived  the  less 
ancient  pines  which  alternated  them,  were  planted  by 
him"  [Richard  (IV.)  Stockton]. — "This  row  of  catalpas 
in  front  of  Morven  can  only  be  viewed  as  a  sacred  me- 
morial to  the  Signer  of  the  Declaration.  The  Fourth 
of  July  is  the  great  day  in  Mr.  Stockton's  calendar,  as  it 
is  in  that  of  our  country,  and  these  catalpas,  with  the 
undeviating  certainty  of  the  seasons,  put  on  their  pure 
white  blooming  costume,  every  Fourth  of  July.    For  this 

128 


Morven  129 

reason,  they  have  been  called,  very  fitly  in  this  country, 
the  '  Independence  Tree.'  For  one  hundred  years 
[this  in  1876]  have  these  trees  pronounced  their  annual 
panegyric  upon  the  memory  of  the  man  who  planted 
them." 

Looking  down  the  leafless  vista  upon  the 
anniversary  of  her  husband's  death-day,  Anice 
Stockton  wrote — for  her  own  eyes  and  her 
children's  : 

"  To  me  in  vain  shall  cheerful  spring  return, 
And  tuneful  birds  salute  the  purple  morn  ; 
Autumn  in  vain  present  me  all  her  stores, 
Or  summer  court  me  with  her  fragrant  bowers  ; 
These  fragrant  bowers  were  planted  by  his  hand 
And  now,  neglected  and  unpruned,  must  stand. 
Ye  stately  Elms  and  lofty  Cedars  !  Mourn  ! 
Slow  through  your  avenues  you  saw  him  borne, 
The  friend  who  reared  you,  never  to  return." 

Although  a  handsome  and  brilliant  woman 
under  fifty  years  of  age  when  left  a  widow, 
Mrs.  Stockton  gave  her  peerless  husband  no 
successor  in  her  heart.  For  her  children's 
sake,  she  took  her  place  in  the  society  she  was 
born  to  adorn,  when  the  days  of  nominal 
mourning  were  over.  The  hospitable  doors  of 
Morven  had  not  been  closed  against  the  hosts 
of  true  friends  who  revered  the  master's  mem- 
ory and  sympathised  in  the  grief  of  the  smitten 


130       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

household.  Congress .  met  in  Princeton  in 
l7%2>,  with  Elias  Boudinot,  Mrs.  Stockton's 
brother,  as  President.  The  Fourth  of  July 
was  celebrated  with  much  dclat  by  the  Literary 
Societies  of  Nassau  Hall,  and  the  orators  of 
the  occasion,  together  with  a  number  of  mem- 
bers of  Congress,  dined  at  Morven  as  the 
guests  of  the  President.  He  was  an  inmate  of 
his  sister's  house  during  the  session  of  the 
Chief  Court  of  the  United  States  at  Prince- 
ton. 

The  fifth  Richard  Stockton  in  the  direct 
line  of  natural  succession,  and  the  fourth  in 
heirship,  was  now  nineteen,  and  already  a  man 
in  dignity  of  bearing  and  mental  development. 
His  environment  was  all  the  most  ambitious 
parent  could  have  asked  for  an  ambitious  son. 
Washington  was  a  frequent  visitor  in  the  house 
of  his  late  friend,  and  on  the  most  cordial 
terms  with  the  accomplished  hostess. 

What  is  "  thought  to  be  the  most  lively  and 
sprightly  letter  that  is  known  to  have  been 
written  by  General  Washington,"  was  ad- 
dressed to  Mrs.  Stockton,  "  Sept.  2,  1783."  It 
was  in  answer  to  an  "  Ode  to  Washington," 
written  by  her  on  the  announcement  of  peace. 
The  tribute  to  the  hero  is  in  the  formal — we 


Morven  133 

should  say,  "stilted" — style  of  a  day  when 
odes  were  en  regie,  and  verse-making  was  an 
accomplishment  much  affected  by  "  society 
people." 

"Emilia "  had  previously  congratulated  Corn- 
wall's victor  in  the  columns  of  the  New  Jersey 
Gazette,  and  received  an  autograph  letter  of 
thanks,  assuring  the  fair  author  that 

"  This  address,  from  a  person  of  your  refined  taste 
and  elegance  of  expression,  affords  a  pleasure  beyond 
my  powers  of  utterance.  I  have  only  to  lament  that  the 
hero  of  your  pastoral  is  not  more  deserving  of  your  pen  ; 
but  the  circumstance  shall  be  placed  among  the  happiest 
events  of  my  life." 

In  the  second  ode,  sent  direct  to  the  subject 
thereof,  the  fair  author  asks  : 

"  Say  !  can  a  woman's  voice  an  audience  gain, 
And  stop  a  moment  thy  triumphal  car  ?  " 

Although  sorely  tempted  to  transcribe  all 
four  pages  of  the  "  lively  and  sprightly  "  prose 
effusion  drawn  from  the  martial  soul  of  the 
recipient  of  the  compliment,  I  must,  perforce, 
content  myself  and  tantalise  the  reader  with 
the  opening  paragraph  and  the  shorter  flight 
into  the  realm  of  fanciful  gallantry  that  follows  : 


i34       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

"  You  apply  to  me,  my  dear  madam,  for  absolution,  as 
though  I  was  your  father  confessor,  and  as  though  you 
had  committed  a  crime,  great  in  itself,  yet  of  the  venial 
class.  You  have  reason  good,  for  I  find  myself  strangely 
disposed  to  be  a  very  indulgent  ghostly  adviser  on  this 
occasion,  and  notwithstanding  '  you  are  the  most  offend- 
ing soul  alive  '  (that  is,  if  it  is  a  crime  to  write  elegant 
poetry),  yet,  if  you  will  come  and  dine  with  me  on 
Thursday,  and  go  through  the  proper  course  of  peni- 
tence which  shall  be  prescribed,  I  will  strive  hard  to 
assist  you  in  expiating  these  poetical  trespasses  on  this 
side  of  purgatory.  Nay,  more  ;  if  it  rests  with  me  to 
direct  your  future  lucubrations,  I  shall  certainly  urge 
you  to  a  repetition  of  the  same  conduct,  on  purpose  to 
show  what  an  admirable  knack  you  have  at  confession 
and  reformation  ;  and  so,  without  more  hesitation,  I 
shall  venture  to  recommend  the  muse  not  to  be  restrained 
by  ill-grounded  timidity,  but  to  go  on  and  prosper. 

"You  see,  madam,  when  once  the  woman  has  tempted 
us,  and  we  have  tasted  the  forbidden  fruit,  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  checking  our  appetite,  whatever  the  con- 
sequences may  be.  You  will,  I  daresay,  recognise  our 
being  the  genuine  descendants  of  those  who  are  reputed 
to  be  our  great  progenitors." 

The  charger  of  our  hero's  imagination  floun- 
ders in  the  unfamiliar  field  as  in  a  morass.  It 
would  be  unfair  to  him,  and  to  her  who  in- 
spired the  ponderous  effusion,  not  to  insert 
the  whole  of  a  third  letter,  to  which  we  turn 
with  grateful  relief : 


Morven  135 

"  Mrs.  Richard  Stockton, 
"  *  Morven,' 

"  Princeton,  N.  J. 

"  Mount  Vernon,  Feb'y  18th,  1784. 
"  Dear  Madam  : 

"  The  intemperate  weather,  and  very  great  care  which 
the  Post  Riders  take  of  themselves,  prevented  your  let- 
ter of  the  4th  of  last  month  from  reaching  my  hands  'till 
the  10th  of  this,  I  was  then  in  the  very  act  of  setting 
off  on  a  visit  to  my  aged  Mother,  from  whence  I  am 
just  returned.  These  reasons.  I  beg  leave  to-  offer,  as 
an  apology  for  my  silence  until  now. 

"  It  would  be  a  pity  indeed,  my  dear  Madam,  if  the 
Muses  should  be  restrained  in  you.  It  is  only  to  be  re- 
gretted that  the  hero  of  your  poetical  talents  is  not  more 
deserving  their  lays.  I  cannot,  however,  from  motives 
of  false  delicacy  (because  I  happen  to  be  the  principal 
character  in  your  Pastoral),  withhold  my  encomiums  on 
the  performance,  for  I  think  the  easy,  simple,  and  beau- 
tiful strains  with  which  the  dialogue  is  supported,  does 
great  justice  to  your  genius,  and  will  not  only  secure 
Lucinda  &  Aminta  from  Wits  &  Critics,  but  draw  from 
them,  however  unwillingly,  their  highest  plaudits,  if 
they  can  relish  the  praises  that  are  given  as  highly  as 
they  must  admire  the  manner  of  bestowing  them. 

"  Mrs.  Washington,  equally  sensible  with  myself  of 
the  honour  you  have  done  her,  joins  me  in  most  affec- 
tionate compliments  to  yourself,  the  young  Ladies  & 
Gentlemen  of  your  family.  With  sentiments  of  esteem, 
regard  and  respect, 

"  I  have  the  honour  to  be,  Dear  Madam, 
"  Y'r  Most  Obed't  Serv't, 

"  G.  Washington." 
9 


136       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

When  her  son  Richard  (V.)  married,  Mrs., 
now  "Madam,"  Stockton  voluntarily  abdicated 
the  throne  she  had  graced  for  more  than  thirty 
years.  Washington's  last  visit  to  her  was  paid 
when  she  was  boarding  in  a  private  family  in 
Princeton.  Her  four  beautiful  daughters  were 
married — Julia,  as  we  have  seen,  to  Dr.  Rush  ; 
Susan  to  Alexander  Cuthbert,  Esq.,  a  Cana- 
dian ;  Mary  to  Rev.  Dr.  Hunter,  a  Presbyterian 
clergyman  who  had  served  through  the  Revo- 
lutionary War  as  an  army  chaplain  ;  Abigail 
to  Robert  Field,  Esq.,  of  Whitehill,  Burlington 
County.  The  mother's  old  age  was  placid  and 
honourable  to  the  end.  At  the  time  of  her 
death,  February  6,  1801,  she  had  resided  for 
some  years  with  her  daughter,  Mrs.  Field. 

I  owe  to  the  kindly  courtesy  of  Mrs.  McGill 
the  privilege  of  inserting  here  a  letter  written 
by  Mrs.  Richard  Stockton  to  Mrs.  Field,  as  a 
preface  to  the  volume  of  MS.  letters  referred 
to  in  the  preceding  chapter.  It  rounds  off 
fitly  the  story  of  conjugal  love,  stronger  than 
death  : 

January  the  12th,  ifpj. 

"You  could  not,  my  dear  Abby,  have  made  a  request 
to  me  more  mournfuly  pleasing,  than  that  of  copying  for 
you  your  dear,  and  ever  lamented  father's  letters.  Your 
tender  years  when  he  left  us,  prevented  you  from  form- 


Morven  137 

ing  any  adequate  idea  of  your  loss  in  such  a  parent.  In- 
deed, you  must  feel  it  more  now,  than  you  could  then. 
I  am  sorry  that  the  ravages  of  war  have  left  so  few  of  his 
writings.  All  of  them  would  be  a  treasure  to  his  child- 
ren, and  an  improvement  to  the  world.  It  seems  as  if 
some  kind  power,  watchful  over  the  happiness  of  poor 
mortals,  had  interposed  to  save  a  very  few  of  the  many 
letters  he  wrote  to  me  while  he  was  abroad.  The 
soldiers'  straw  and  dirt  from  which  I  carefully  collected 
them  with  my  own  hand,  has  indeed  so  torn  and  effaced 
them,  together  with  the  running  hand  in  which  they 
were  written,  that  I  do  not  wonder  that  you  cannot  read- 
ily read  them.     .     .     . 

"  You  will  see  in  those  letters,  the  portrait  of  your  be- 
loved Father's  character  in  the  domestick  point  of  view, 
which  was  truly  amiable, — and  tho  when  he  wrote  them, 
they  were  intended  for  no  eye  but  mine,  yet  by  them  you 
will  be  better  able  to  judge  of  his  character,  as  a  friend, 
a  husband,  and  a  parent,  than  by  a  volume  of  encomium 
drawn  up  by  the  ablest  hands.  Had  I  the  ability  to  do 
his  talents,  his  virtues,  and  his  usefulness,  justice,  they 
should  not  be  buried  in  silence  and  forgotten, — but  to 
you,  my  dear,  I  will  give  a  few  traits  of  his  character, — 
as  I  know  you  will  never  sit  as  a  critic  on  your  Mother's 
attempts  to  revive  in  your  memory  the  sweet  idea  of  such 
a  Father.  Therefore  I  dedicate  this  little  manuscript 
book  to  you. 

"  He  was  a  most  accomplished  man,  adorned  with  such 
native  ease  and  dignity  of  manner  as  did  honour  to  hu- 
man nature.  His  address  was  elegant  and  fascinating  ; 
— he  had  all  the  polish  of  a  Court,  in  his  conversation 
and  behaviour.     He  was  a  man  of  genius  and  learning, 


138       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

and  appeared  to  understand  the  theory  of  the  whole  cir- 
cle of  sciences  and  the  practice  of  a  great  many  of  them 
perfectly.  He  had  the  most  active  and  penetrating  mind, 
with  the  clearest  head,  and  the  most  sound  judgment  I 
ever  knew  meet  in  one  man,  joined  to  an  industry  and 
attention  in  everything  that  he  undertook,  that  made  him 
able  to  accomplish  what  he  designed,  however  arduous 
the  purpose.  He  was  kind,  benevolent,  and  hospitable, 
ever  ready  to  do  good,  both  in  the  line  of  his  profession, 
and  in  the  daily  occurrences  of  life.  His  piety  towards 
God,  his  gratitude  for  all  His  mercies,  his  resignation  to 
His  will,  and  his  confidence  in  the  atoning  merits  of  his 
blessed  Redeemer,  completed  the  whole  round  of  his 
character,  and  formed  him  to  be  the  best  of  husbands, 
the  kindest  father,  brother,  master,  friend.  My  earnest 
prayer,  day  and  night,  is  that  you  may  all  tread  in  his 
footsteps,  and  enjoy  his  reward.     .     .     . 

"  I  have  in  my  possession  many  letters  which  he  wrote 
to  Lord  North  and  other  ministers  after  he  returned  from 
England  respecting  this  country.  The  cloud  that  after- 
ward poured  in  a  storm  all  over  this  extensive  continent 
was  gathering  thick  when  he  was  in  England,  and  he 
laboured  as  much  as  he  was  able  then  for  the  sake  of 
both  countries  to  avert  it.  My  motive  in  mentioning 
these  letters  to  you  is  to  elucidate  in  some  degree  my 
opinion  of  his  penetration,  as  you  will  see  that  it  oper- 
ated there  almost  to  prediction.  Therefore  I  wish  you 
to  read  them,  and  I  shall  add  to  what  I  have  written  in 
this  book  copies  of  the  anniversary  eulogy  which  I  have 
written  to  his  memory  almost  every  year  since  his  death, 
the  return  of  which  I  have  ever  kept  as  a  day  of  solitude 
and  retirement,  and  shall  to  the  end  of  my  days." 


Morven  139 

Richard  (V.)  Stockton,  surnamed  by  college- 
mates  and  townsmen  "  the  Duke,"  while  lack- 
ing his  father's  unfailing  courtesy  of  mien  and 
affability  to  lofty  and  low,  won  and  held  the 
respect  of  his  fellow  citizens.  "  He  was  a 
gentleman  of  a  lofty  sense  of  honour  and  the 
sternest  integrity,"  testifies  an  eminent  lawyer 
who  studied  his  profession  in  Mr.  Stockton's 
office.  "  He  had  a  great  abhorrence  of  every- 
thing mean  and  unworthy." 

From  the  same  authority,  (Mr.  Samuel  J. 
Bayard  of  Princeton,)  we  have  a  characteristic 
anecdote  of  "  the  Duke."  When  Lafayette 
made  the  tour  of  America  in  1824-26,  the 
master  of  Morven  was  appointed  by  the  com- 
mittee of  reception  to  act  as  their  mouthpiece 
in  welcoming  the  distinguished  visitor  to 
Princeton.      Mr.  Bayard  writes  : 

"  In  the  morning  of  the  day  on  which  Lafayette  was 
to  arrive  the  council  assembled  to  hear  Mr.  Stockton 
read  his  address.  He  commenced  by  saying  '  Monsieur 
le  Marquis  de  La  Fayette.'  After  he  concluded,  I  sug- 
gested timidly  that  La  Fayette  had  renounced  his  title  in 
the  National  Assembly  and  that  he  would  prefer  in  this 
country  to  be  called  '  General.'  Mr.  Stockton  sternly 
said — '  Once  a  Marquis,  always  a  Marquis  !  I  shall  ad- 
dress him  by  what  was  his  title  before  the  infamous 
French  Revolution.'     And  he  did  so  address  him.  " 


140       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Mr.  Stockton  was  elected  twice  to  Congress, 
once  to  the  Senate,  and  once  to  the  House,  and 
stood  for  a  quarter-century  in  the  front  rank  of 
American  jurists. 

He  died  at  Morven  in  1828. 

His  eldest  son  Richard  (VI.)  who  should 
have  come  after  him  in  the  proprietorship  of 
the  now  ancient  homestead,  removed  to  Missis- 
sippi before  his  father's  death,  and  continued 
there  the  practice  of  law  he  had  begun  with 
flattering  promise  of  success  in  New  Jersey. 
He  was  Attorney  General  of  his  adopted 
State  when  he  was  killed  in  a  duel  with  a 
brother  judge. 

Morven,  with  two  hundred  and  seventy  acres 
of  surrounding  land,  together  with  fifteen 
thousand  acres  in  North  Carolina  and  other 
tracts  in  New  Jersey  and  elsewhere,  composed 
the  fortune  Robert  Field  Stockton,  "  the 
Duke's "  second  son,  found  waiting  for  him 
when  called  to  take  the  place  left  vacant  by  his 
father's  death. 

He  had  entered  Princeton  College  in  the 
thirteenth  year  of  his  age.  Mr.  Hageman  re- 
lates that  "  in  his  boyhood  he  was  characterised 
for  his  personal  courage,  a  high  sense  of 
honour,  a  hatred  of  injustice,  with  unbounded 


Morven  141 

generosity  and  a  devoted  attachment  to  his 
friends."  Added  to  these  were  ambitions  that 
seemed  audacious  in  a  boy,  and  a  thirst  for 
adventure  rarely  developed  in  American  youths 
born  to   M  expectations."       These    aspirations 


COMMODORE    ROBERT    FIELD   STOCKTON. 

begat  such  restlessness  in  the  high-spirited  boy 
that  he  left  college  before  the  time  for  gradua- 
tion, and  entered  the  navy,  a  service  then 
mightily  stimulated  by  the  prospect  of  another 
war  with  Great  Britain.  Robert  Stockton 
received  his  midshipman's  commission  in  181 1, 
and  was  sent  on  board  the  frigate  President, 


142       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

then  preparing  for  a  patrol  cruise  along  the 
coast  threatened  by  British  vessels.  In  the 
war  of  1 812,  his  dauntless  courage  and  keen 
delight  in  the  excitement  and  danger  of  battle 
earned  for  him  the  nickname  of  "  Flighting 
Bob,"  a  title  that  stayed  by  him  all  his  life. 

Ten  years,  crowded  with  perils  and  happen- 
ings, elapsed  before  he  was  again  at  Morven. 
His  parents  were  living,  and  had,  besides  him- 
self, seven  other  children.  The  young  falcon 
had  tried  his  wings  and  knew  their  strength 
and  the  joys  of  flight.  At  twenty-eight  he 
had  fought  under  Decatur  at  Algiers,  cruised 
and  explored  and  battled  under  Bainbridge, 
Rodgers,  and  Chauncey,  and  risen  to  the  rank 
of  Lieutenant.  Philanthropy  entered  into  the 
next  project  that  fired  his  ardent  soul.  In 
1 82 1  he  sailed  for  the  coast  of  Africa,  com- 
manding officer  of  anew  vessel,  and,  as  actuary 
of  the  American  Colonisation  Society,  com- 
missioned to  select  a  location  for  the  colony  of 
liberated  negroes  they  purposed  to  establish 
near  the  British  settlement  of  Sierra  Leone. 
The  history  of  the  expedition  belittles,  in 
stirring  incident,  hairbreadth  escapes,  and 
daring  enterprise,  the  most  improbable  of 
Stevenson's,  Hope's,  and  Weyman's  fictions. 


Morven  143 

After  his  party  of  three  white  men  and  an 
interpreter  had  forced  their  way  through  mo- 
rass, jungle,  and  forest  to  the  village  of  the 
African  chief,  "  King  Peter,"  they  were  con- 
fronted by  a  horde  of  murderous  savages,  in- 
furiated by  the  rumour  that  the  object  of  the 
strangers'  visit  was  to  convict  the  tribe  of 
supplying  slavers  with  prisoners  taken  in  in- 
ternecine warfare,  and  women  and  children 
stolen  from  their  enemies'  villages.  I  extract 
from  Hageman's  History  a  partial  account  of 
the  scene  given  by  Doctor  Ayres,  an  eye- 
witness : 

"Stockton  instantly,  with  his  clear,  ringing  tone  of 
voice,  commanded  silence.  The  multitude  was  hushed 
as  if  a  thunderbolt  had  fallen  among  them,  and  every 
eye  was  turned  upon  the  speaker.  Deliberately  drawing 
a  pistol  from  his  breast  and  cocking  it,  he  gave  it  to  Dr. 
Ayres,  saying,  while  he  pointed  to  the  mulatto  :  '  Shoot 
that  villain  if  he  opens  his  lips  again  !  '  Then,  with  the 
same  deliberation,  drawing  another  pistol  and  levelling 
it  at  the  head  of  King  Peter,  and  directing  him  to  be 
silent  until  he  heard  what  was  to  be  said,  he  proceeded 
to  explain  the  true  object  of  this  treaty,  and  warned  the 
king  of  the  consequences  of  his  refusal  to  execute  it, 
threatening  the  worst  punishment  of  an  angry  God  if  he 
should  fail  to  perform  his  agreement. 

"  During  this  harangue,  delivered  through  an  inter- 
preter, the  whole  throng,  horror-struck  with  the  danger 


144       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

of  their  king  and  awed  by  the  majesty  of  an  ascendant 
mind,  sunk  gradually,  cowering  prostrate  to  the  ground. 
If  they  had  believed  Stockton  to  be  an  immediate  mes- 
senger from  heaven,  they  could  not  have  quailed  and 
shrunk  and  humbled  themselves  to  more  humiliating 
postures.  Like  true  savages,  the  transition  in  their 
minds  from  ferocity  to  abject  cowardice  was  sudden 
and  involuntary.  King  Peter  was  quite  as  much  over- 
come with  fear  as  any  of  the  crowd,  and  Stockton,  as 
he  perceived  the  effect  of  his  own  intrepidity,  pressed 
the  yielding  mood  only  with  more  sternness  and  vehe- 
mence." 

The  territory  purchased  for  the  American 
Colonisation  Society  by  Lieutenant  Stockton 
is  now  the  Republic  of  Liberia. 

As  the  determined  opponent  of  the  slave- 
trade,  he  chased  and  captured  a  number  of 
slave-ships  sailing  under  false  colours  ;  ferreted 
out  more  than  one  nest  of  pirates,  and  dragged 
the  offenders  to  justice.  He  had  crowded  the 
events  and  perils  of  a  lifetime  into  his  thirty- 
one  years  of  mortal  existence  when  he  seemed 
content  to  settle  down  to  the  peaceful  pursuits 
of  a  country  gentleman  in  the  home  and  town 
his  forefathers  had  founded.  For  sixteen 
years  he  had  never  asked  for  a  furlough,  and 
now,  while  holding  himself  in  readiness  to 
respond    to    the    recall    to    active    service,   he 


Morven  145 

engaged  with  characteristic  energy  in  the 
duties  that  lay  nearest  his  hand.  He  was 
the  President  of  the  Colonisation  Society ; 
the  importer  of  blooded  racers  from  Eng- 
land ;  the  eloquent  supporter  of  Andrew  Jack- 
son's claims  to  the  Presidential  chair  ;  the 
largest  shareholder  and  most  active  promoter 
of  the  Delaware  and  Raritan  Canal  Company, 
making  a  voyage  to  England  to  effect  a  loan 
in  behalf  of  the  scheme. 

Jackson's  advocate  was  not  Van  Buren's. 
Captain  Stockton  "  stumped  "  New  Jersey  for 
"Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too,"  in  1840,  and, 
when  Harrison's  death  made  John  Tyler  Presi- 
dent, was  offered  and  declined  the  Secretary- 
ship of  the  Navy.  "  Fighting  Bob's  "  tastes 
did  not  lie  in  the  direction  of  state-desks,  port- 
folios, and  audience  of  office-seekers. 

One  of  the  great  honours  and  the  great 
catastrophe  of  his  eventful  life  came  to  him 
February  28,  1844.  At  his  earnest  request 
the  Navy  Department  authorised  him  to  con- 
struct the  first  steamship-of-war  ever  success- 
fully launched.  The  marvel  was  named  by 
her  gratified  inventor — The  Princeton.  The 
trial  trip  was  made  down  the  Potomac.  The 
passengers  were   the    President  and  Cabinet, 


146       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

many  members  of  Congress  and  distinguished 
residents  of  Washington.  The  two  great  guns 
were  fired  amid  wild  enthusiasm.  They  were 
still  at  table  when  some  of  the  company  were 
seized  with  a  desire  to  have  one  of  the  big  guns 
fired  a  second  time.  The  Captain  objected, 
smilingly  ;  "  No  more  guns  to-night !  "  he  said, 
decidedly. 

The  request  was  pressed  by  the  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  and  the  Captain  fired  the  gun  with 
his  own  hand.  A  terrific  explosion  ensued. 
The  iron  monster  had  burst,  and  five  of  the 
guests,  including  the  Secretary  of  State  and  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  were  killed  instantly. 
Although  the  court  of  inquiry  absolved  Captain 
Stockton  from  all  blame,  he  carried  the  awful 
memory  of  the  day  all  his  life,  and  could  never 
allude  to  it  without  profound  emotion. 

We  have  not  room  for  more  than  a  hasty 
summary  of  other  achievements  of  this  eminent 
scion  of  a  noble  race.  He  took  possession  of 
California  for  the  United  States,  and  formed 
a  provisional  government  there  in  1846,  thus 
securing  the  jurisdiction  for  his  nation  before 
the  close  of  the  Mexican  War.  The  first 
printing-press  and  schoolhouse  in  California 
were  his  work.      He  resigned  his  command  in 


Morven  147 

the  Navy,  May  28,  1850;  was  United  States 
Senator  from  New  Jersey,  1851-53  ;  was  the 
nominee  of  the  "  American  Party "  for  the 
Presidency  in  1856,  a  ticket  withdrawn,  at  his 
instance,  before  election-day. 

In  1 86 1,  he  wrote  to  Governor  Olden  : 

"  to  consider  the  best  means  of  preserving  our  own  State 
from  aggression. 

"  You  remember  it  is  only  the  River  Delaware  that 
separates  New  Jersey  from  the  Slave  States.  If  you 
should  see  fit  to  call  upon  me  for  any  aid  that  I  can 
render,  it  is  freely  rendered.  This  is  no  time  to  potter 
about  past  differences  of  opinion,  or  to  criticise  the 
administration  of  public  affairs.  I  shall  hoist  the  Star- 
Spangled  Banner  at  Morven,  the  former  residence  of  one 
of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, — 
that  flag,  which,  when  a  boy,  I  nailed  to  the  frigate 
President." 

Commodore  Stockton  drew  his  last  breath 
where  he  had  drawn  his  first — in  Morven.  He 
saw  the  July  blossoming  of  the  catalpas  in 
1866.  Catalpas  were  in  the  sere,  elms,  chest- 
nuts, and  maples  in  the  yellow,  leaf  when  the 
keen  eyes  closed  upon  earthly  change  and 
glory.  He  died  October  7,  1866,  in  his  seventy- 
first  year, 

"  full  of  vigour  and  energy.  No  infirmity  of  body  had 
given  a  premonition   of  his  death,"  writes  the  historian. 


148       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

"  His  health  had  been  preserved  by  his  abstemious  hab- 
its of  life  and  general  care  of  himself.  .  .  .  He  was 
impulsive,  yet  self-possessed,  generous  and  noble,  with 
a  wonderful  magnetism  over  men  when  he  came  into 
personal  contact  with  them." 

In  1824,  when  twenty-nine  years  old,  he 
married  a  South  Carolina  belle,  Miss  Maria 
Potter,  daughter  of  Mr.  John  Potter,  then 
of  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  afterwards  a 
prominent  citizen  of  Princeton.  Commodore 
Stockton  survived  his  excellent  wife  for  sev- 
eral years. 

Their  sons  were  Richard  (VII.),  a  lawyer 
of  note,  and  Treasurer  of  the  Delaware  and 
Raritan  Company  ;  John  Potter  Stockton,  who 
became  Attorney  General  of  the  State  and  an 
active  and  popular  United  States  Senator; 
General  Robert  Field  Stockton,  Comptroller 
of  the  State  of  New  Jersey — all  men  of  rare 
ability,  and  useful  citizens  of  State  and  nation. 
Six  daughters  grew  to  womanhood  :  Mrs. 
F.  D.  Howell,  Mrs.  Admiral  Howell,  Mrs. 
W.  R.  Brown,  Mrs.  Hopkins,  Mrs.  W.  A. 
Dod,  and  Miss  Maria  Stockton. 

Morven  lapsed  out  of  the  straight  line  of 
succession  at  Commodore  Stockton's  death. 
It  remained  in  the  family  until  it  was  bought 


Morven  1 5 1 

by  Rev.  Dr.  Shields,  of  Princeton.  His 
daughter,  the  wife  of  Bayard  Stockton,  Esq., 
a  grandson  of  Commodore  Stockton,  is  now 
the  graceful  mistress  of  the  venerable  mansion. 
The  venerable  homestead  is  therefore  restored 
to  the  lineal  succession  of  the  founders. 

Front  and  back  doors  of  the  wide  hall  stood 
open  to  let  in  spring  sunshine  and  airs  when 
1  visited  Morven  in  the  present  year.  A 
tall  Japan  apple-tree  (Pyrus  floribunda)  on 
one  side  of  the  porch  flamed  red  and  clear  as 
the  bush  that  burned  on  Horeb  ;  other  clumps 
of  flowering  shrubbery,  pink,  white,  and  yel- 
low, lighted  up  the  grounds  laid  out  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty  years  ago  after  the  pattern  of 
Mr.  Pope's  at  Twickenham.  Horse-chestnuts 
still  stand  in  line  to  indicate  the  course  of 
ancient  avenues,  and  the  rugged  catalpas, 
defiant  of  the  centuries,  mount  guard  upon 
the  outskirts  of  the  lawn.  At  the  left  of 
the  entrance-hall  is  the  dining-room,  where 
Washington  and  his  generals — Lafayette  and 
Rochambeau  and  Viscount  de  Chastellux, — 
Cornwallis  and  his  officers,  grave  and  rever- 
end seigniors  from  every  land  under  the  sun, 
and  nearly  every  President  of  the  United 
States,    have   broken   bread   and   quaffed    the 


152        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

generous  vintage  for  which  t^e  Morven  cellars 
have  always  been  famous. 


BAYARD   STOCKTON,    Esq. 

A  scarf  wrought  by  the  deft  fingers  of  the 
present  lady  of  the  manor  is  thrown  over  a 
sideboard,  and  bears  this  legend  : 

Sons  of  Morven  spread  the  feast,  and  send  the  night  away 
in  song." 

The  drawing-room  is  across  the  hall,  and  we 
pass  up   the  staircase  to  the   chamber  where 


Morven 


i53 


Cornwallis  "lay" — in  archaic  phrase — during 
the  four  weeks  in  which  Washington  was  mak- 
ing ready  to  dislodge  him.  The  carved  mantel 
in  this  room  was  in  place  then,  and  the  logs 
blazed  merrily  below  when  the  Delaware  and 
Raritan  were  frozen  over,  and  the  deposed 
master  of  Mor- 
ven was  being 
done  to  his  death 
in  common  jail 
and  prison-ship. 
T  h  e  giant 
horse-chestnut  at 
the  rear  of  the 
house  sprang 
from  a  nut 
planted  by  one 
of  the  Pintard 
brothers  when 
they  were  court- 
ing the  sisters, 
Abigail  and  Susannah  Stockton,  more  than  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years  ago.  The  patriarch 
tree  is  eleven  feet  in  girth,  and  upbears  his 
crown  far  above  the  ridge-pole  of  the  house  it 
has  shaded  for  seven  generations  of  human 
life.      Upon   the  circular  platform   at  its  root 


THE   GIANT    HORSE-CHESTNUT   TREE." 


154       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Commodore  Stockton  used  to  arrange  dancing- 
parties  on  moonlight  nights,  when  the  branches 
were  heavy  with  blossoms  and  the  summer  air 
sweet  with  their  odour. 

"And  do  no  ghosts  walk  here?"  I  say  in- 
credulously, pausing  for  a  long  look  at  the 
portrait  of  "  the  Commodore"  against  the  wall  in 
the  dining-room,  his  sword  suspended  under  it. 

The  hostess,  so  slight  of  figure,  so  girlish  in 
the  riante  face  and  clear,  youthful  tones  that 
—set  in  the  storied  spaces  of  the  old  colonial 
homestead, — she  reminds  me  of  nothing  so 
much  as  the  poet's  "violet  by  a  mossy  stone," 
makes  laughing  reply  : 

"  None  !  That  is,  none  that  trouble  this 
generation." 


VI 


SCOTIA,  THE  GLEN-SANDERS  HOUSE, 
SCHENECTADY,  NEW  YORK 

UPON  the  27th  day  of  July,  in  the  year  of 
our  Lord  1661,  a  commissioner  appointed 
by  Peter  Stuyvesant,  "  Director-General  and 
Commissary  of  the  Privileged  West  India 
Company  at  Fort  Orange  and  the  town  of 
Beverwyck "  (now  Albany),  countersigned  a 
deed  of  sale  from  "  certain  chiefs  of  the  Mo- 
hawk country  "  "  unto  Sieur  Arent  Van  Cur- 
ler of  a  parcel  of  land  or  Great  Flat  called  in 
Indian,  Schonowa."  In  payment  for  this 
tract,  upon  which  the  city  of  Schenectady 
now  stands,  the  Mohawks  received  a  "  certain 
number  of  cargoes,"  character  and  value  un- 
known. 

The  "  Flats  and  Islands "  thus  conveyed 
were  neither  a  wooded  wilderness  nor  a  bar- 
ren waste,    but   cleared   lands  that  had   been 

155 


156       More  Colonial  Homesteads 


QLEN-SANDERS  COAT  OF  ARMS. 


cultivated  for  generations  by  the  least  barbar- 
ous of  the  aboriginal  residents.  The  Mo- 
hawks had  five  strong 
villages,  or  castles,  be- 
tween the  mouth  of  the 
river  bearing  their  name 
and  Canajoharie,  their 
upper,  and  great,  castle 
in  Herkimer  County. 
"  Schonowa,"  or  Schen- 
ectady Castle,  was  the 
second  sold  by  them  to 
the  whites. 

Among  the  petitioners  to  the  Director-Gen- 
eral for  permission  to  negotiate  for  the  tract 
was  Alexander  Lindsay  Glen,  a  Scotch  High- 
lander who,  like  hundreds  of  other  pioneers, 
had  tarried  in  Holland  on  the  way  to  America 
long  enough  to  identify  himself  with  Dutch 
immigrants.  To  association  with  them  he 
owed  the  name  by  which  he  was  known  in  the 
early  days  of  his  residence  in  the  Colonies, 
"Sander  Leendertse  Glen."  His  original  in- 
tention to  settle  himself  upon  a  grant  of  Dela- 
ware lands  was  frustrated  by  the  unfriendliness 
of  the  Swedes,  who  were  in  possession  there 
in  1643.   He  applied  for,  and  received,  another 


Scotia  157 

grant  in  New  Amsterdam  (New  York)  in  1646. 
As  a  trader  in  Albany,  then  Beverwyck,  he 
amassed  a  considerable  fortune, 

"  owned  lands,  houses,  and  cattle  at  Gravesend,  Long 
Island,  and  in  1658,  built  a  mansion  of  stone,  on  the 
north  bank  of  our  beautiful  river,  under  protection  and 
title  of  the  Mohawks  ;  for  which  site  and  some  adjacent 
uplands,  with  some  small  islands  and  all  the  flats  con- 
tiguous, he  obtained  a  patent  in  1665."  1 

That  the  Highlander  was  canny  in  his  gen- 
eration these  facts  denote.  An  anecdote  ex- 
tracted from  another  early  history  is  in  evidence 
of  other  Scotch  traits.  An  atrent  of  the  West 
India  Company  attempted  to  arrest  a  negro 
slave  belonging  to  "  Sander  Leendertse  Glen." 
Her  master  resisted  the  official,  and,  when 
threatened  with  imprisonment  and  confisca- 
tion if  he  persisted  in  his  contumacy,  boldly 
declared  himself  a  subject  of  the  Patroon  of 
Rensselaerwyck,  the  determined  opponent 
of  the  West  India  Company's  authority  and 
claims. 

"  I  cannot  serve  a  new  master  until  I  am 
discharged  from  the  one  I  live  under,"  he 
maintained,  sturdily. 

And  when  the  infuriated  officer  "  drew  his 

1  Early  History  of  Schenectady,  by  Hon.  John  Sanders. 


158       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

rapier  and  threatened  to  run  his  adversary 
through,  Glen  fearlessly  seized  a  club  to  repel 
his  assailant,  who  then  prudently  retired." 

Loyalty,  thrift,  and  courage  were  united,  in 
the  staunch  Presbyterian,  to  blameless  integ- 
rity that  earned  the  confidence  of  white  and 
savage  neighbours.  He  bought  lands  from 
the  Mohawks  and  paid  for  them  ;  Indians  and 
negroes  worked  together  in  his  broad  mead- 
ows, and  ate  from  the  same  board.  Beyond 
the  stone  mansion,  to  which  he  gave  the  name 
of  "  Scotia,"  in  loving  memory  of  his  native 
land,  stretched  away  to  the  north  hundreds  of 
miles  of  woodlands  and  fertile  valleys,  un- 
claimed by  the  whites.  Between  him  and  the 
bounds  of  Canada  the  Indians  held  everything, 
and  were  prepared  to  resist  every  trespass 
upon  their  right's.  While  Alexander  Glen 
lived  these  rights  were  religiously  respected, 
and  the  foundations  laid  of  an  hereditary 
friendship  between  the  residents  of  Scotia 
and  the  Mohawks  which,  as  we  shall  see,  bore 
much  fruit  in  after  years. 

"  Reared  in  the  religious  tenets  of  John 
Knox,"  the  successful  freeholder  was  also  a 
valiant  churchgoer.  Four  times  a  year  an  Al- 
bany dominie  visited  Schenectady,  to  adminis- 


Scotia  159 

ter  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  and  to 
baptise  such  infants  as  had  helped  swell  the 
population  of  the  young-  colony  since  his  last 
services  there.  There  was  a  Reformed  Dutch 
church  in  Albany,  twenty-odd  miles  away, 
and  perhaps  a  dozen  times  in  the  twelve- 
month "  Sander  Leendertse  Glen  "  was  in  his 
pew  in  the  sacred  edifice,  having  left  Scotia 
early  Saturday  morning  to  accomplish  the 
journey  by  Saturday  night.  In  1682,  he  built, 
at  his  own  expense,  "  and  presented  the  same 
to  the  inhabitants  of  Schenectady  as  a  free 
gift,"  a  frame  building,  to  be  used  as  a  church 
on  Sundays,  as  a  public  hall  during  the  week. 
The  first  pastor  was  installed  and  the  building 
was  consecrated  in  1684. 

Catherine  Dongan  Glen,  the  wife  of  Alex- 
ander, died  at  Scotia  in  August  of  the  same 
year,  and  at  her  husband's  request  was  buried 
in  the  chancel  of  the  church.  One  year  and 
two  months  thereafter  a  grave  was  opened  for 
him  at  her  side.  There  their  remains  were 
found  after  an  interment  of  one  hundred  and 
sixty-three  years,  and  reverently  removed  by 
a  descendant  to  the  Scotia  family  burying- 
ground. 

Of  his   three  sons  (he  had  no  daughters), 


160       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Jacob  Alexander  died  one  month  before  his 
father's  decease,  at  the  age  of  forty.  He  had 
lived  in  Albany  many  years,  and  left  five  chil- 
dren, three  sons  and  two  daughters. 

Alexander,  the  second  son,  was  an  active 
and  influential  citizen  of  Schenectady,  the 
captain  of  a  company  of  Colonial  militia,  a 
justice  of  the  peace,  a  mighty  hunter,  and 
a  famous  fisherman.  He  died  at  the  age  of 
thirty-eight,  childless. 

The  homestead  and  the  surrounding  planta- 
tion were  inherited  by  John  Alexander,  the 
third  and  youngest  son  of  Alexander  Lindsay 
Glen.  As  a  rule,  the  colonists  married  early. 
At  nineteen,  John  Alexander  had  espoused 
Anna  Peek,  the  daughter  of  the  settler  from 
whom  Peekskill  takes  its  name,  and  was  now 
the  father  of  six  living  children. 

The  site  of  the  "  mansion  of  stone  "  on  the 
north  bank  of  the  Mohawk  was  nearer  the  wa- 
ter's edge  than  the  present  house.  Little  by 
little,  the  channel  encroached  upon  grounds 
and  foundations  for  half  a  century,  until  the 
lower  courses  of  stone — all  that  remain  to 
mark  the  spot — are  now  under  water.  When 
John  Alexander  Glen  became,  in  the  thirty- 
seventh  year  of  his  age,  master  of  the  estate, 


Scotia 


161 


he  was  the  richest  man  for  many  miles  around. 
The  family  gift  of  winning  popularity  was  his 


TABLET  IN  SCOTIA,  BROUGHT  FROM  ENGLAND. 

in  large  measure.  With  the  Indians  and 
French  he  was  "  Major  Coudre,"  a  nickname 
bestowed  for  some  reason  that  has  not  been 
transmitted  to  us. 

Says  his  historian-descendant,  in  mock  seri- 
ousness : 


"  The  Mohawks  of  Scotia's  early  days  were  always 
devoted  friends  of  the  Dutch,  but  they  were  barbarous 
after  all,  and  the  white  population  was  too  sparse,  weak, 


162       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

and  timid  to  interfere  with  the  chivalric  customs  of 
those  noble  knights  of  the  tomahawk,  blunderbuss,  bow, 
and  arrow." 

In  pursuance  of  the  politic  tolerance  ex- 
ercised toward  the  chivalric  customs  of  the 
soil,  the  Mohawks  had  been  allowed  to  re- 
tain the  right  to  torture  and  burn  alive  such 
prisoners  as  they  willed  to  hale  to  a  hillock 
within  the  precincts  of  the  Scotia  plantation. 
The  spot  had  been  set  aside  for  that  purpose 
through  untold  generations  of  blood-loving 
warriors.  Where  their  fathers  butchered,  they 
would  slay  and  burn.  Nothing  the  Glens — 
father  and  sons — could  say  had  abated  the 
horrible  practice. 

When  a  large  body  of  Mohawks,  just  re- 
turned from  an  expedition  northward,  swarmed 
down  upon  their  "  reserve  "  one  summer  after- 
noon, soon  after  Alexander  Glen's  death,  the 
hubbub  of  savage  rejoicing,  distinctly  audible 
at  the  house,  was  nothing  novel  or  alarming. 
What  was  to  be,  would  be.  If  John  Glen  and 
Anna,  his  wife,  had  not  seen  with  their  own 
eyes  the  frightful  ceremonies  set  for  the  next 
day,  they  had  heard  stories  of  them  from  their 
babyhood,  and  comprehended  the  futility  of 
meddling  with  wild  beasts  ravening  for  blood. 


Scotia  163 

The  complexion  of  the  present  case  was 
changed  when  a  party  of  the  savages  brought 
to  their  house  for  safe-keeping  a  French 
Jesuit  priest,  the  destined  victim  of  the  mor- 
row's sacrifice. 

I  quote  from  a  descendant's  letter : 

"  The  reason  of  their  peculiar  dislike  to  priests  was 
this  :  The  Mohawks  were  Protestants  after  their  own 
fashion, — ''because  the  Dutch  were* — and  this  priest, 
with  others,  had  proselyted  among  them,  and  caused 
some,  as  a  Catholic  party,  to  remove  to  Canada.  Now, 
these  rejoicing,  victorious  Christians  soon  announced  to 
Mr.  Glen  and  his  wife  that  they  intended  a  special  roast 
of  their  captive  on  the  following  morning.  So  they 
brought  the  unfortunate  priest  along  for  Glen  to  lock 
up  in  his  cellar  until  they  should  want  him  for  their 
pious  sacrifice." 

With  the  blanched  face  and  quivering  limbs 
of  the  doomed  man  before  them,  the  husband 
and  wife  were  coolly  composed.  They  raised 
no  objection  to  the  pious  roast  aforesaid.  As 
a  matter  of  ordinary  prudence,  they  declined 
to  take  the  responsibility  of  becoming  the 
captor's  gaolers.  They  knew  the  tricks  and 
manners  of  these  priests.  .  Wizards  they  were, 
to  a  man,  and  the  Jesuits  the  wiliest  wizards 
of  all.    If  the  Mohawks,  at  all  times  and  every- 


1 64       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

where  their  very  good  friends,  insisted  upon 
putting  the  prisoner  into  their  cellar,  he  must 
be  locked  up  by  the  Mohawks'  own  hands  and 
the  key  be  taken  away  by  them.  In  Mr.  Glen's 
opinion,  they  would  find,  in  the  morning,  that 
the  magician  had  slipped  out  through  the  key- 
hole. This  "  one  thing  he  proposed  with  wise 
solemnity,  and  this  just  proposition  Mrs.  Glen 
seconded." 

After  the  cellar  was  securely  locked  and  the 
key  safe  in  the  keeping  of  the  captors,  Mr. 
Glen  strolled  down  to  the  encampment  with 
them,  and  led  the  conversation  to  a  journey 
his  mules  and  a  trusty  negro  or  two  were  to 
make  to  Albany  the  next  day.  Scotia  was 
out  of  salt,  and  there  was  not  enough  in  Sche- 
nectady to  supply  the  plantation.  Team  and 
negroes  would  set  out  before  sunrise.  The 
roads  were  deep  with  sand,  and  the  noonday 
sun  hot. 

The  savages  listened  indifferently.  A  keg 
of  rum  had  been  ordered  from  Schenectady, 
and  they  made  a  night  of  it.  Had  the  Glens 
been  inclined  to  sleep  they  could  not  have 
closed  their  eyes  for  the  hellish  screechings 
and  chants  that  could  be  heard  all  the  way  to 
the  town.      It  was  after  two  o'clock  when  the 


Scotia  165 

Protestant  participants  in  the  orgies  fell  into 
a  drunken  slumber.  By  four,  a  wagon  drove 
from  the  back  door  of  the  house,  laden  with 
what  assumed  to  be  empty  hogsheads.  One, 
in  the  centre  of  the  load,  was  open  at  the  bot- 
tom, and  there  were  holes  bored  here  and  there 
to  admit  the  air. 

When  Mr.  Glen,  awakened  by  the  howls  of 
rage  and  disappointment  arising  from  the  cel- 
lar, made  his  appearance  next  morning,  he 
reminded  the  Indians  of  his  caution  : 

"  I  told  you  so  !     Priests  are  wizards." 

And  they  reluctantly  replied  :  "  Coudre  was 
right." 

"  Nor,"  concludes  the  narrative,  "  was  it  ever 
known  that  any  Mohawk  of  that  generation 
discovered  the  deception.  Major  Glen  was 
always  a  great  favourite  with  the  Mohawks. 
His  sayings  and  doings  were  ex  cathedra." 

The  possibility  that  he  had  a  duplicate  key 
to  his  cellar  never  occurred  to  their  noble 
minds. 

The  good  deed  of  that  summer  night  was 
repaid  with  compound  interest  five  years  after- 
wards. On  February  8,  1690,  a  force  of  French 
and  Indians  swooped  down  upon  the  town  of 
Schenectady  and   massacred  every  white  per- 


1 66       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

son  who  could  not  escape,  with  the  exception 
of  a  few  old  men,  women,  and  children,  spared 
through  a  spasm  of  compassion  on  the  part  of 
the  French  commandant. 

"  When  Coudre,  who  was  Mayor  of  the  place  and 
lived  on  the  other  side  of  the  river,  would  not  surren- 
der, and  began  to  put  himself  on  the  defensive,  with 
his  servants  and  some  Indians  ...  it  was  resolved 
not  to  do  him  any  harm  in  consequence  of  the  good 
treatment  the  French  had  formerly  experienced  at  his 
hands.  .  .  .  Only  two  houses  were  spared  in  the 
town — one  belonging  to  Coudre,  and  another,  whither 
M.  de  Montigny  had  been  carried  when  wounded." 

Such  is  the  account  of  the  massacre  given 
by  a  French  writer. 

Brave  Anna  Glen  died  in  December,  1690, 
— the  year  Schenectady  was  burned.  Just  six 
months  and  two  days  afterward  her  widower 
married  the  Widow  Kemp,  whose  first  hus- 
band, a  justice  of  the  peace,  had  lost  his  life 
in  the  massacre.  She  was  a  sister  of  Cap- 
tain Alexander  Glen's  wife,  and  brought  his 
brother,  her  second  husband,  a  goodly  portion. 

The  two  wives  brought  him,  between  them, 
no  less  than  thirteen  children,  seven  of  them 
belonging  to  Anna,  six  to  Deborah  Kemp. 

In    1 713,    Major   Glen    built    a    new    stone 


M        mm  wt 

/ 

1 

'  \»^t\                             .^.-^                   *"'  aB 

1 

\toiy  ..&Slih 

1 

■  \    \         MB     ■HWBS!,F«^«r**4S  '     "  * 

V 

^Stp  -pHf 

r 

1SP\M"Ci 

| 

^hmmii-^  i^B 

Scotia  169 

house  upon  a  knoll  overlooking  the  river,  and 
but  a  few  hundred  yards  from  the  old  home, 
which  was  demolished  to  supply  part  of  the 
material  for  the  present  homestead.  The  incur- 
sion of  the  current — diverted  by  later  changes 
in  the  banks  and  bed  of  the  river — had  made 
Major  Glen  uneasy  as  to  the  permanence  of 
the  structure,  and  he  needed  more  room  for 
his  large  family.  Thrift  may  have  entered 
into  the  utilisation  of  every  beam  and  door 
and  balustrade  in  the  erection  of  the  second 
Scotia.  Yet  he  was  wealthy  enough  to  spare 
the  workmen  the  pains  of  the  contriving  and 
fitting  manifest  to  the  curious  inspector  of  the 
dwelling.  Doors  were  re-hinged  and  hung, 
the  grooves  of  bolt  and  latch  remaining  on  the 
other  side,  and  a  score  of  other  makeshifts,  or 
what  would  have  been  makeshifts  in  a  poorer 
man,  are  to  be  seen  throughout  the  building. 
It  is  altogether  likely  that  affectionate  associa- 
tion with  the  days  of  his  youth  and  the  father 
who  had  preceded  him  in  the  house  which  was 
the  northern  vanguard  of  civilisation,  moved 
him  to  preserve  the  wood  and  stone  he  could 
not  feel  were  insensate. 

He  lived  in  the  new  house  until  his  death, 
at  the  age  of  eighty-three,  in  1731. 


j  7°       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Alexander,  the  third  child  and  eldest  son  of 
Major  John  Alexander  Glen,  became  a  ship's 
surgeon,  and  died  at  sea  in  1686;  John,  sixth 
child  and  second  son,  also  died  before  his 
father,  and  unmarried  ;  Jacob  Alexander,  next 
in  order  of  succession,  removed  to  Baltimore 
at  an  early  age  and  founded  there  a  family. 
"  Several  of  the  line  became  greatly  distin- 
guished for  wealth  and  legal  ability,"  notably 
Judge  Elias  Glen  and  his  son,  John  Glen, 
who,  as  United  States  Judge  for  Maryland, 
"  took  his  seat  upon  the  same  bench  his  father 
had  previously  occupied." 

Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  Jacob  Glen,  the 
eighth  child  of  Major  John,  and  the  first  fruits 
of  the  second  marriage,  fell  heir  to  Scotia  and 
a  large  portion  of  the  original  estate.  This 
fortune  he  nearly  doubled  by  judicious  trad- 
ing and  investments  in  the  thirty-one  years  of 
his  occupancy  of  the  mansion.  He  was  a  per- 
sonage of  note  in  the  town  and  neighbour- 
hood, a  wise  agriculturist,  a  skilful  surveyor, 
a  member  of  the  Provincial  Legislature,  and 
colonel  of  all  the  militia  west  of  Albany, — a 
regiment  at  one  time  3000  strong.  Exercise 
of  the  proverbial  hospitality  of  the  Scotia  clan 
proved  fatal  to  himself  and  wife.     Some  lately 


Scotia  17 l 

arrived  emigrants,  sick,  hopeless,  and  poor, 
were  sheltered  and  fed  by  the  charitable  couple 
until  they  could  obtain  employment  elsewhere. 
Colonel  and  Mrs.  Glen  took  ship-fever  from 
them,  and  died  within  three  days  of  one  an- 
other in  August,  1762. 

Their  only  child,  Deborah,  pretty  and  a 
prospective  heiress,  was  the  idol  of  her  parents 
and  a  brilliant  figure  in  what  Schenectady  by 
now  called  society.  When,  at  eighteen  she 
married  John  Sanders  of  Albany,  it  was  a  for- 
gone conclusion  that,  as  our  record  phrases  it, 
he  should  "immediately  remove  to  Scotia." 
To  "remove"  the  petted  darling  from  the 
homestead  would  be  to  tear  the  pearl  from  a 
setting  that  would  be  worse  than  valueless 
without  her. 

From  the  first  mention  of  Deborah  (the 
family  register  spells  it  without  the  final  Ji) 
Glen  in  the  pages  that  are  more  than  half- 
filled  with  italicised  lists  of  the  born,  married, 
and  died,  she  seizes  upon  our  fancy  as  a  liv- 
ing personality  might.  There  is  a  full-length 
picture  of  her  upstairs  in  "  Grandma's  Room," 
to  which  we  shall  mount  by-and-by.  It  had 
never  much  value  as  a  work  of  art.  With 
other  paintings  that  hang  in  the  same  room, 


172       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

it  was  once  snatched  from  a  burning  room,  and 
is  darkened  by  smoke  and  heat.  But  we  take 
kindly,  even  lovingly,  to  the  little  lady,  as  we 
see  her  there.  She  has  a  sonsie,  shrewd,  happy 
Scotch  face  and  a  trig  figure  laced  up  in  a  co- 
quettish boddice  ;  she  carries  her  head  a  trifle 
proudly,  as  conscious  of  her  dignities  and  im- 
munities from  rules  that  constrained  other 
damsels  of  her  rank  and  age  to  obedience  to 
parents  and  superiors.  A  pair  of  her  slippers, 
flowered  satin,  with  high  heels  and  high  in- 
steps, are  brought  to  us  while  we  look  at  her. 
We  run  three  fingers  into  the  silken  recess  of 
the  instep  and,  in  imagination,  fit  them  upon 
the  tiny  feet  that  in  the  painting  are  shod  with 
just  such  another  pair.  At  her  side  is  the  pict- 
ure of  a  nice-looking  boy,  and,  facing  him  on 
the  opposite  wall,  is  the  portrait  of  an  old  man, 
his  cheeks  sunken  and  forehead  seamed  by  the 
ploughshare  of  time  and  care.  Both  represent 
one  and  the  same  person — the  John  Sanders 
whom  she  played  with  as  a  child,  and  married 
when  she  had  grown  to  womanhood  and  he 
was  a  man  of  twenty-five. 

Life's  ironies  are  oftenest  and  most  aptly 
expressed  by  these  old  family  portraits  and 
relics. 


Scotia  1 73 

Our  dainty  Deborah  was  dauntless  as  well. 
In  the  lower  hall  we  stayed  to  hear  a  story 
that  made  us  shudder,  as  she  did  not  for  her- 
self. She  was  reading  in  the  library  at  the 
left  of  the  front  door  one  day,  when  she  heard 
loud  wrangling  in  the  hall,  and  went  out  to  see 
what  was  the  matter.  Two  Indians,  probably 
from  the  encampment  mentioned  just  now, 
had  come  to  blows.  One  had  pressed  his  an- 
tagonist up  to  the  first  landing  of  the  stairs, 
and  the  latter,  seeing  himself  worsted,  raised 
his  tomahawk.  The  other,  unarmed,  made  a 
flying  leap  down  the  stairs  and  into  a  closet 
on  the  right  of  the  hall.  The  tomahawk  fol- 
lowed, just  missing  Deborah's  head,  and  scal- 
ing a  splinter  from  the  balustrade  in  hissing 
by.  The  tradition  is  that  Deborah  ordered 
both  men  from  the  house,  and  was  obeyed 
without  demur  from  either. 

Mrs.  Jacob  Glen  Sanders,  of  Albany  has  a 
clock — the  handsomest  of  its  kind  I  ever  saw 
— which  was  one  of  Deborah  Glen's  bridal 
gifts  from  her  fond  father. 

The  stately  timepiece  is  in  perfect  preserva- 
tion, and  ticks  away  the  seconds — "  the  stuff 
time  is  made  of" — with  unerring  regularity, 
setting  the  pace  for  watches  and  other  clocks 


i74       More  Colonial  Homesteads 


DEBORAH  GLEN'S  CLOCK. 


with  the  authority  of  a 
chronometer.  If  the  rest 
of  Deborah's  plenishing 
was  in  keeping,  a  prin- 
cess might  have  been 
content  with  the  outfit. 

When  John  Sanders 
and  Deborah,  his  wife, 
had  been  married  twenty- 
six  years,  and  for  three 
years  the  proprietors  of 
Scotia,  they  bought  out 
the  interests  of  John 
Glen  of  Albany  and  John 
Glen,  Jr.,  of  Schenec- 
tady, in  the  Glen  estate, 
vesting  in  themselves  the 
title  to  the  bulk  of  the 
family  wealth  and  hon- 
ours, and  "  merging  that 
branch  of  the  Glens  and 
the  Scotia  estate  into  the 
Sanders  name." 

Colonel  Glen  died  in 
1782,  at  the  age  of  sixty- 
eight ;  his  wife  in  1786, 
in  her  sixty-fifth  year. 


Scotia  i75 

Of  the  five  children  who  survived  them, 
John  (II.)  succeeded  to  the  ownership  of 
Scotia;  Maria  married  John  Jacob  Beekman 
of  Albany;  Sarah,  her  cousin,  John  Sanders 
Glen  of  Scotia  ;  Elsie,  Myndart  Schuyler  Ten 
Eyck  of  Schenectady  ;  Margaret,  Killian  Van 
Rensselaer  of  Albany.  Noble  names,  all  of 
them,  and  too  familiar  in  the  history  of  the 
Empire  State  to  need  such  poor  commenda- 
tion as  these  pages  could  give. 

John  (II.)  Sanders  also  wedded  a  "  Debora." 
She  was  his  first  cousin,  being  the  daughter  of 
his  uncle,  Robert  Sanders,  of  Albany.  They 
were  married  in  1777,  and  she  died  in  1793. 
Their  children  were  :  Elizabeth,  who  married 
William  Anderson;  Barent,  died  in  1854; 
Robert,  died  in  infancy  ;  Sarah,  married  to 
Peter  Schuyler  Van  Rensselaer ;  Catherine, 
married  to  Gerard  Beekman  ;  Robert,  died  in 
1840;  Jacob  Glen,  father  of  Jacob  Glen  San- 
ders, Esq.,  of  Albany ;  Peter,  who  died  in 
1850.  The  last  named  was  the  grandfather 
of  Mr.  Charles  P.  Sanders,  the  present  pro- 
prietor of  Scotia. 

In  1 801,  John  (II.)  Sanders  married,  as  his 
second  wife,  Albertine  Ten  Broeck.  Their 
eldest  son,  John    (III.),   a  lawyer   of  note  in 


176       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Schenectady,  was  the  author  of  the  History  of 
Schenectady,  from  which  I  have  drawn  largely 
in  constructing  the  framework  of  this  chapter. 

The  old  house  fell  to  his  brother  Peter  in 
the  division  of  the  estate  ;  at  the  death  of  Pe- 
ter, to  his  son  Charles,  who  married  Jane  L. 
Ten  Broeck.  Their  son,  Charles  P.  Sanders, 
Jr.,  succeeded  in  his  turn,  and  now  owns  the 
homestead.  Anna  Lee  Sanders,  his  wife,  is  a 
direct  descendant  of  Deborah  Glen  through 
Deborah's  daughter  Maria,  the  sister  of  John 
(II.)  Sanders. 

The  troublous  time  through  which  the  col- 
ony on  the  beautiful  Mohawk  fared  to  stabil- 
ity and  peace,  bore  with  peculiar  severity  upon 
Mrs.  Sanders's  forbears.  Two  of  them,  Abram 
de  Graff  and  Captain  Daniel  Toll,  were  mur- 
dered about  three  miles  north  of  Scotia  by  the 
French  and  Indians  in  1748;  a  third  died  in 
captivity  in  Canada  in  1  746. 

It  is  given  to  few  other  American  home- 
steads, even  to  such  as  have  remained  in  one 
family  for  two  centuries,  to  contain  such  a 
wealth  of  valuable  relics  of  the  elder  times  our 
young  nation  is  just  now  beginning  to  appre- 
ciate aright.  Entering  the  house  from  the 
river-side,  and  by  what  used  to  be  the  front 


Scotia  177 

door,  we  pass  through  a  quaint,  roomy,  Dutch 
"  stoop,"  supplied  with  benches,  where  succes- 
sive generation  of  Glens  and  Sanderses  were 
wont  to  sit  of  warm  afternoons,  with  pipe  and 
mug,  enjoying  the  breeze  from  the  water,  and 
looking  down  toward  Schenectady.  From  the 
stoop  we  view  the  "  killing-ground,"  the  hil- 
lock so  accursed  in  the  memory  of  the  white 
settlers  that  it  was  selected  as  the  slaughter- 
place  of  the  plantation.  Every  animal  butch- 
ered here — from  beeves  to  chickens — was  taken 
to  that  spot  to  be  killed,  perhaps  with  some 
unexpressed  notion  of  the  atonement  of  bloody 
sacrifice  for  the  crimes  done  there, — some 
shadowy  idea  of  washing  away  human  blood 
with  the  blood  of  beasts.  The  custom  was 
kept  up  until  the  last  generation. 

In  his  old  age,  John  (II.)  Sanders  would  sit 
here  in  his  arm-chair  and  tell  his  great-grand- 
children how  he  had  himself  witnessed  the 
burning  of  the  last  prisoner  who  met  his  death 
thus  and  there, — a  Mohegan  Indian,  whom  no 
entreaties  on  the  part  of  their  white  "  friends  " 
could  induce  the  torturers  to  liberate. 

The  stoop  is  lined  with  solid  wooden  shut- 
ters, working  in  grooves  so  that  they  can  be 
raised  or  lowered,  to  exclude  sun  or  rain,  or  to 


178       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

admit  the  air.  The  massive  double  "  Dutch" 
door  was  brought  from  the  lower  and  older 
house  ;  the  library  on  the  left  is  filled  with 
books — some  modern,  more,  ancient.  Rare  old 
editions  of  German,  French,  Dutch,  and  English 
classics  make  the  collector's  eyes  glisten  covet- 
ously ;  piles  of  leather-bound  ledgers,  written 
full — in  ink  that  is  still  black — of  entries  of 
transactions  between  the  masters  of  the  soil 
and  other  settlers,  near  and  far,  are  upon 
shelves  and  tables.  There  is  hardly  a  name 
of  repute  common  to  Albany,  Schenectady,  or 
New  York  City  that  is  not  to  be  found  there, 
and  the  sums  total  at  the  close  of  each  week 
and  month  represent,  not  hundreds,  but  thous- 
ands of  dollars,  sometimes  tens  of  thousands, 
reckoned,  of  course,  in  English  pounds,  shil- 
lings, and  pence.  From  a  great  roll  of  yellowing 
newspapers  of  different  dates — few  under  a  hun- 
dred years  old — Mr.  Sanders  extracted  for  us 
one  headed  "Printing  Office,  Lansingburgh, 
May  6,  1789."  The  head-lines,  in  the  same 
type  with  the  rest  of  the  paper,  begin  in  this 
fashion  : 

"Sensible  of  the  pleasure  that  an  early  pe- 
rusal thereof  will  afford  our  respectable  read- 
ers"    The  article  then  states  that  the  events 


Scotia  179 

to  be  described  occurred  in  New  York,  April 
30,  one  week  ago.  The  extra,  hurried  through 
the  press  in1  such  haste  that  the  reverse  of  the 
sheet  is  left  blank,  treats  of  the  inauguration  of 
Washington  as  first  President  of  these  United 
States.  A  copy  of  his  Inaugural  Address  fol- 
lows. On  the  back  of  it  is  written,  in  a  good 
clerkly  hand,  "  King  Washington  s  Speech!' 
Lansingburgh  and  the  enterprising  editor 
had  not  yet  mastered  the  nomenclature  of  a 
republican  administration. 

Among  the  hundreds  of  autograph  letters 
stored  in  boxes  and  drawers,  is  a  "  due  bill " 
written  upon  a  square  scrap  of  paper,  so  ten- 
der and  tattered  it  hardly  held  together  while 
I  copied  it  : 

" 'The  Bearer,  Schoyghoowate,  a  Young  Cayouga  chief, 
has  been  upon  a  Scouting  party  in  Fort  Stamvix  in  the  Be- 
ginning of  July  '77,  where  5  prisoners  and  4  Scalps  were 
taken,  and  has  not  received  any  Reward  for  said  Service, 
this  is  therefore  to  Certify  that  I  shall  see  him  contented  for 
Said  Service  on  my  first  seeing  him  again. 

"  Buck  Island,  gth  July  '77. 

"  Dan.   Claus. 
' '  Superintendent  of  the  Western  Expedition. 

It-  is  not  agreeable  to  meet  Sir  William 
Johnson's  son-in-law  again  when   he  is  about 


180        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

such  work  as  this.  When  I  had  transferred 
the  inscription  to  my  note-book,  my  scholarly 
Schenectady  host,  who  had  escorted  me  to 
Scotia,  laid  an  impressive  finger  upon  the 
time-stained  memorandum  : 

"Yet  latter-day  historians  deny  that  the 
British  Government  paid  a  bounty  for  scalps  ! 
Daniel  Claus  was  an  officer  of  the  Crown." 

What  can  be  said  or  thought  except  that  we 
hope  the  business  of  contenting  the  Cayouga 
of  the  unpronounceable  name  was  a  private 
venture  on  the  part  of  our  old  acquaintance, 
Nancy  Johnson's  husband  ? 

The  drawing-room,  and  the  square  hall  open- 
ing into  what  is  now  used  as  the  front  door, 
are  stocked  with  a  bewildering  and  bewitching 
array  of  antique  furniture.  The  Chippendale 
sideboard  in  the  hall  is  in  perfect  preservation 
and  extremely  handsome  ;  another  sideboard 
holds  wondrous  store  of  family  plate, — coffee- 
and  tea-pots,  tankards,  and  other  drinking-ves- 
sels  of  fantastic  design,  a  tall  cream-jug,  grace- 
ful in  shape  and  exquisite  in  finish,  massive 
forks  and  spoons,  to  make  which,  other  and 
yet  older  silver  was  melted  down  a  half-century 
ago,  a  bit  of  barbarity  akin  to  the  sale  by  an 
economical  housewife,  "  away  back,"  of  a  ton 


Scotia  181 

or  so  of  old  papers, — letters,  deeds,  and  the 
like, — "  that  were  cluttering  up  the  garret."  A 
waggon-load  of  "  the  rubbish "  went  to  the 
paper-mill,  and  was  ground  into  pulp. 

There  are  chests  upon  chests  of  old  manu- 
scripts left  in  the  great  attic.  When  Sir  John 
Johnson  fled  to  Canada,  accompanied  by  Wal- 
ter Butler,  many  boxes  of  the  Butler  papers 
were  taken  possession  of  by  the  American  au- 
thorities, and  stored  in  Scotia  for  safe-keeping. 
They  are  here  now,  tucked  away  under  the 
eaves,  awaiting  resurrection  at  the  call  of  relic- 
hunter  or  antiquarian. 

To  either  of  these  the  Scotia  attic  would  be 
an  enchanted  palace.  One  end  is  filled  by  the 
''smoke-room,"  where  the  annual  supply  of 
bacon,  beef,  venison,  and  fish  was  hung,  each 
in  its  season,  and  cured  by  the  smoke  of  hick- 
ory and  oak  chips  smouldering  in  the  hollowed 
floor.  A  valve  in  the  chimney,  forming  one 
side  of  the  curing-room,  allowed  the  smoke  to 
escape  when  it  had  done  its  work.  Outside 
of  this  room  is  a  mass  of  antiques  of  all  sorts 
and  ages.  Fire-buckets,  foot-stoves,  warming- 
pans,  two  immense  turn-spits,  still  whole,  and 
in  good  working  order  if  they  were  needed  ; 
spinning-wheels  of  all  sizes  ;  chairs  and  stools  ; 


1 82        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

candle-sticks,  trays,  and  snuffers  ;  hair-trunks. — 
My  eye  singled  out  from  these  last  one  about 
a  foot  long,  and  perhaps  eight  inches  high, 
lettered  with  brass  nails,  "  H.  T.  B." 


OLD  CHINA  IN   SCOTIA. 


"  Helen  Ten  Broeck,"  Mr.  Sanders  inter- 
preted, as  I  read  the  initials  aloud. 

I  opened  it  gently.  It  is  well  finished,  and  still 
whole  and  staunch.  Did  Helen  Ten  Broeck 
keep  her  laces  in  it  ?  or,  maybe,  her  love-letters  ? 


Scotia  183 

Close  by  are  two  cradles,  one  within  the 
other.  In  one — a  child's  cradle  —  Deborah 
Glen  rocked  her  son  (John  II.),  the  hum  of 
her  flax-wheel  (it  stands  but  a  few  feet  away 
now)  forming  a  lulling  undercurrent  of  sound 
to  the  Scotch  song  learned  from  her  mother. 
The  second  cradle  is  over  six  feet  lone,  and  of 
proportionate  width.  The  stout  ribs  and  bars 
are  of  black  walnut,  and  it  was  constructed 
according  to  the  orders  of  the  same  John 
Sanders  in  his  infirm  old  age.  For  months 
before  the  end  came,  he  would,  or  could,  sleep 
nowhere  else,  and  was  rocked  to  his  rest 
nightly.  By-and-by  he  was  cradle-ridden,  and 
lay  thus,  swung  gently  to  and  fro  by  his  son 
John  (HI.)  and  his  negro  slaves,  until  senility 
passed  naturally  into  death. 

"  Grandma's  Room  "  is  a  veritable  museum 
of  curios.  Upon  a  large  round  table  are  rows 
and  groups  and  heaps  of  crockery,  china,  and 
cut  glass,  each  piece  of  which  would  figure 
anywhere  else  as  bric-a-brac  ;  the  washstand 
on  the  other  side  of  the  room  belonged  to 
Robert  Fulton  ;  each  chair,  secretary,  stand, 
and  picture  has  a  story,  mellow  with  the  use 
of  a  century  or  two.  A  triangular  silver  nut- 
meg-grater, "  found  the  other  day  in  a  corner 


i 84        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

of  a  drawer,"  still  holds  a  quarter-nutmeg,  left 
after  the  last  toddy  or  sangaree  was  mixed  in 
tankard  or  tumbler,  a  dust  of  the  aromatic 
spice  on  top,  and  quaffed  by  laughing  lips  that 


OLD  PIANOFORTE,  ANTIQUE  CHAIR,   ROBERT  FULTON'S  WASHSTAND 
AND  TOILET-SET. 

have    been    dust — nobody   knows    how    many 
years. 

In  the  adjoining  chamber  Louis.  Philippe  slept 
for  a  night  when  an  exiled  prince.  Over  against 
the  bed  hangs  a  mourning-piece  wrought,  stitch 
by  stitch,  in  black  silk  upon  white  satin,  to  the 


Scotia 


185 


memory  of  Philip  Van  Rensselaer  and  Eliza- 
beth Elmendorf.  A  rickety  church  is  in  the 
background ;    a    tomb    in    the    foreground    is 


LOUIS   PHILIPPE'S  BEDROOM    IN   SCOTIA. 


kept  perpendicular  by  the  figure  of  a  weeping 
woman  who  leans  with  all  her  might  against  it. 
A  map  of  the  Colonies,  made  by  the  Eng- 
lish Government,  of  six  sheets  of  paper  pasted 
together ;    a  picture  burnt   into    glass  (a  lost 


1 86        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

art)  of  the  escape  of  /Eneas  from  blazing 
Troy ;  astonishing  shell-work  pictures,  bear- 
ing date  of  1 789,  —  adorn  other  walls.  A 
spinet  is  in  one  corner;  a  pianoforte  made  In 
England  by  "  Astor,"  in  another.  Hours  might 
be  whiled  away  in  inspection  and  inventorying, 
and  the  half  remain  unseen  and  unlisted.  As 
I  left  the  room  reluctantly,  I  caught  sight  of 
a  pair  of  embroidered  stays,  said  to  have  been 
worn  by  my  adopted  favourite,  Deborah  Glen. 
They  measure  just  eighteen  inches  around. 

Scotia  is  built  of  stone  and  brick,  covered 
with  concrete.  Upon  the  front  outer  wall  are 
wrought-iron  scrolls  forming  the  date  of  con- 
struction, 

A.  D.  1713. 

Attached  to  the  scrolls  are  anchor-rods  fast- 
ened deep  in  the  wall  and  holding  it  together. 

If  the  homestead  do  not  stand  firm  for  two 
hundred  years  more  the  fault  cannot  be  laid  at 
the  door  of  founder  or  builder. 


VII 

TWO  SCHUYLER  HOMESTEADS, 

ALBANY,  N.  Y. 

The  city  of  Albany  was  stretched  along  the  banks 
of  the  Hudson  ;  one  very  wide  and  long  street  lay 
parallel  to  the  river,  the  intermediate  space  between 
it  and  the  shore  being  occupied  by  gardens.  A  small 
but  steep  hill  rose  above  the  centre  of  the  town,  on  which 
stood  a  fort,  intended  (but  very  ill  adapted)  for  the  de- 
fense of  the  place,  and  of  the  neighbouring  country. 

"  The  English  church,  belonging  to  the  episcopal  per- 
suasion, and  in  the  diocese  of  the  bishop  of  London,  stood 
at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  at  the  upper  end  of  the  street." 

1MAKE  the  extracts  from  a  curious  old 
book  seldom  found  nowadays  in  private  li- 
braries. The  title  in  full  runs  thus  :  Memoirs  of 
an  American  Lady,  with  Sketches  of  Manners 
and  Scenes  in  America,  as  they  Existed  Pre- 
vious to  the  Revolution,  by  Mrs.  Anne  Grant, 
author  of  Letters  from  the  Alountains,  etc. 
From  the  prefatory  Memoir  of  the  author, 
187 


188        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

we  gather  that  she  was  the  daughter  of  a 
Scotch  officer,  a  resident  of  the  Colonies  of 
North  America  for  ten  years  or  thereabouts, 
and  that  the  Memoirs  of  an  America7i  Lady 
were  a  reminiscence    of    the    childish    experi- 


mM 


FORT  AND  CHURCH   IN  ALBANY  (1755). 


ences  of  Mrs.  Anne  Grant  "  of  Laggan,"  so 
called  to  distinguish  her  from  another  writer 
of  the  same  surname,  the  author  of  Roys  Wife 
of  Aldivalloch. 

The   recollections  of    the    young  girl   were 
deepened   and  supplemented  by  the  observa- 


Two  Schuyler  Homesteads        189 

tions  of  her  father  and  mother.  Taken  to- 
gether, they  present  an  excellent  picture  of 
the  social  life  and  customs  of  Central  New 
York  from  1755  to   1  768.1 

She  digresses  ad  libitum  ;  she  moralises  in- 
consequently ;  she  is  invariably  sentimental, 
and  seldom  graphic  ;  Albert  de  Quincey  says 
she  was  an  "  established  wit,  and  received  in- 
cense from  all  quarters "  ;  and  a  critic  of  her 
day  praised  the  description  given  in  the  rare 
old  volume  of  the  breaking  up  of  the  ice  in 
the  upper  Hudson  as  "  quite  Homeric."  Still, 
making  allowance  for  the  out-of-date  style  and 
want  of  sequence  in  the  narrative,  her  book  is 
delightful  and  a  mine  of  wealth  to  the  novelist 
and  historian  interested  in  that  particular  epoch 
of  our  pre-national  existence. 

The  setting  of  her  discursory  tale  of  An 
American  Lady  is  the  town  of  Albany,  "a  city 
which  was,  in  short,  a  kind  of  semi-rural  estab- 
lishment." 

One  of  the  prettiest  scenes  she  revives  for 
us  is  the  coming  home  of  the  cows  at  sunset 
from  the  common  pasture  at  the  end  of  the 

1  A  later  edition,  revised  by  General  James  Grant  Wilson  and  dedi- 
cated to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  V.  L.  Pruyn,  of   Albany,  was  published  in 

1876. 


ioo        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

town,  each  with  her  tinkling  bell,  and  each 
turning  in,  of  her  own  motion,  at  the  gate  of 
the  yard  where  she  belonged,  to  be  milked 
in  the  open  air,  while  the  children  waited 
for  their  supper  of  brown  bread  and  milk, 
eaten  in  warm  weather  upon  the  front  door- 
step. 

After  sundry  chapters  devoted  to  the  Alba- 
nians' gentle  treatment  of  their  negroes,  Re- 
flections 'upon  Servitude,  Education  and  Early 
Habits  of  the  Albanians,  First  Adventures  of 
the  Indian  Traders,  Marriages,  Amusements, 
Rural  Excursions,  etc.,  we  are  introduced  for- 
mally in  Chapter  XII.  to  Miss  Schuyler,  who, 
by  the  way,  is  miscalled  "  Catalina."  A  page 
is  given  to  recapitulation  of  her  heroine's 
charms  of  mind  and  person  before  the  author 
is  led  off  from  what  we  had  expected  to  travel 
as  a  main  line,  by  allusion  to  Miss  Schuyler's 
familiarity  with  the  Indian  language  and  her 
benevolence  to  her  Indian  neighbours,  into  a 
ten-page  disquisition  upon  Detached  Indians  : 
Progress  of  Knowledge  and  Indian  Manners. 
By-and-by,  when  we  have  gained  the  goal  of  our 
research,  we  will  turn  back  and  read  these  and 
other  ten  pages  with  lively  interest.  Just  now 
we  push  on  to  Chapter  XIV.      Eye  and  atten- 


Two  Schuyler  Homesteads        191 

tion  seize  upon  the  quaintly  coy  announce- 
ment that 

"  Miss  S."  (named  plainly  a  dozen  pages  back)  "  had 
the  happiness  to  captivate  her  cousin  Philip,  eldest  son 
of  her  uncle,  who  was  ten  years  older  than  herself,  and 
was  in  all  respects  to  be  accounted  a  suitable  and,  in  the 
worldly  sense,  an  advantageous  match  for  her." 

The  reader  of  this  page  who  has  done  me 
the  previous  honour  of  perusing  Chapter  VII. 
of  the  first  volume  of  Colonial  Homesteads,  may 
recall,  as  therein  recorded,  the  story  of  a  cer- 
tain Margaritta  Van  Slichtenhorst  who  wedded 
another  Philip  Schuyler,  and  afterward,  as  the 
widowed  mother  of  Peter  Schuyler  (nicknamed 
"  Quidor,"  or  "  Quidder,"  by  the  Indians), 
routed  four  of  Leisler's  subordinates  and 
"  forced  them  to  flee  out  of  the  towne,"  of 
which  her  son  was  the  rightful  mayor.  "  Miss 
Schuyler,"  who  had  the  good  fortune  to  en- 
snare her  cousin  Philip's  affections,  was  named 
for  her  spirited  grandmother.  Mrs.  Grant's 
memory  confounds  her  Christian  name  with 
that  of  her  younger  sister,  Catalina.  Her  hus- 
band was  the  eldest  son  of  Peter  (II.)  Schuy- 
ler and  his  wife,  Maria  Rensselaer. 

Of  Mrs.  Schuyler's  father,  Johannes,  or  Col- 
onel John  Schuyler,  we    have    already  heard 


192        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

several  times — always  favourably.  His  in- 
fluence over  the  Indians,  while  not  equal  to 
that  exercised  by  Sir  William  Johnson,  was 
strong  and  beneficial.  Although  but  fifteen 
years  old  at  the  time  of  his  father's  death,  he 
resembled  him  more  nearly  in  character  and 
in  the  career  upon  which  he  entered  almost 
immediately,  than  any  other  of  the  great 
"  Quidor's  "  children.  He  was  a  brave  fighter, 
and  the  outspoken  opponent  of  Government 
officials  whose  measures  threatened  the  wel- 
fare of  the  Colonies  or  the  rights  of  their 
Indian  allies.  It  is  pleasant  to  learn  that  he 
"  detested  the  infamous  traffic  "  in  scalps  car- 
ried on  by  the  French  and  Indians,  and,  as  we 
have  seen,  not  despised  by  the  English.  His 
petted  daughter  Margaritta  was  fourteen  years 
old  when  Colonel  John  Schuyler  went  to  Mon- 
treal purposely  to  negotiate  the  exchange  of 
Eunice  Williams  (see  Colonial  Homesteads,  p. 
418)  for  two  Indian  children.  His  report  of 
the  ill  success  of  the  most  Christian  enterprise 
opens  our  hearts  still  more  to  him  : 

"  Being  very  sorry  that  I  could  not  prevail 
upon  her,  I  took  her  by  the  hand  and  left 
her." 

One  of  the  many  genealogical  lapses  in  Mrs. 


PETER  SCHUYLER  ("QUIDOR"). 

FROM    ORIGINAL   PAINTING   BY   SIR   GODFREY   KNELLER,    IN   THE   POSSESSION    OF  THE 
SCHUYLER    FAMILY. 


*3 


[03 


Two  Schuyler  Homesteads        195 

Grant's  narrative,  which  was  penned  "unas- 
sisted by  written  memorials,"  is  her  statement 
that  Margaritta  Schuyler  lost  her  father  at  an 
early  age,  and  was  brought  up  by  an  uncle. 

As  Johannes  Schuyler  survived  all  his 
brothers  and  his  own  sons,  dying  in  1747,  and 
bequeathing  to  his  daughter  "  Margaritta,  wife 
of  Colonel  Philip  Schuyler,  a  picture  of  him- 
self and  his  wife  in  one  frame,"  we  must  apply 
to  our  old  friend  all  the  good  things  the  vener- 
able chronicler  says  of  the  guardian  to  whom 
"  Miss  S.  owed  her  cultivated  taste  for  read- 
ing "  and  knowledge  of  the  "  best  authors  in 
history,  divinity,  and  belles-lettres."  This  be- 
comes apparent  as  we  read  on  and  compare 
with  other  and  careful  histories  of  the  time 
such  sentences  as  these  : 

"  His  frontier  situation  made  him  a  kind  of  barrier 
to  the  settlement,  while  the  powerful  influence  that  his 
knowledge  of  nature  and  of  character,  his  sound  judg- 
ment and  unstained  integrity  had  obtained  over  both 
parties,  made  him  the  bond  by  which  the  aborigines  were 
united  with  the  colonists." 

This  is,  undoubtedly,  the  half-length  por- 
trait of  our  dear  Colonel  John,  or  Johannes, 
as  the  Albanians  called  him  :  valiant  in  war- 
fare, tender  in  treaty  ;  his  heart  swelling  until 


i96        More  Colonial  Homesteads 


he  could  not  speak,  at  thought  of  the  news  he 
must  bear  back  to  his  old  friend,  Parson  Wil- 
liams, of  his  sullenly  obstinate  daughter,  yet 
withstanding  to  the  face  tyrant  governors,  and 
detesting-  with  the  full  force  of  his  ardent  na- 
ture  the  infernal  barter  of  scalps  for  the  white 
man's  gold  and  fire-water. 

He  it  was  who  gave  his  daughter  in  mar- 
riage to  her  cousin  Philip   in   1719.     She  was 

eighteen ;  her  hus- 
band, according  to 
Mrs.  Grant,  twenty- 
eight.  Other  au- 
thorities give  his 
age  as  twenty-three, 
as  he  was  born  in 
16960 

In   following   the 
lines    of    Philip 
Schuyler's  character 
and  deeds,  we  can- 
not avoid  tracing,  in 
close    parallels,    his 
history  and  that  of 
Isaac,  the   estimable   and   only  lawful   son  of 
the    patriarch     Abraham,     occupying,     as    he 
does,  an  intermediate  place  between  two  men 


SCHUYLER  COAT  OF  ARMS. 


Two  Schuyler  Homesteads        197 

of    note,    Peter    Quidor    and    General    Philip 
Schuyler. 

His  kinsman,  George  W.  Schuyler,  the  au- 
thor of  Colonial  New  York,  writes  : 

"  He  held  a  prominent  position  in  the  province  many- 
years.  He  succeeded  his  father  as  commissioner  of 
Indian  affairs,  but  not  to  his  influence  among  the  Five 
Nations.  They  respected  him  for  his  high  character 
and  integrity,  but  did  not  defer  implicitly  to  his 
counsel. " 

Mrs.  Grant  testifies  to  his  "  mild,  benevo- 
lent character  and  excellent  understanding, 
which  had  received  more  culture  than  was 
usual  in  the  country." 

"  His  close  intimacy  with  the  De  Lanceys 
made  him  unpopular  with  Governor  Clinton 
and  his  party."  It  might  be  said  with  more 
exact  truthfulness,  that  he  was  not  in  favour 
with  the  governmental  party,  for  the  feeling 
never  grew  into  active  hostility.  He  was  ag- 
gressive in  nothing. 

The  home  of  the  happily  wedded  pair  was 
upon  "  the  Flatts,"  a  wide  stretch  of  meadow- 
land  and  forest,  about  three  miles  from  Albany. 
It  was  natural  that  the  Dutch  settlers  should 
select  level  ground  as  building-sites,  and,  when 
practicable,    set  their  houses   near  the  water. 


i98        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

It  may  have  been  as  natural,  for  a  contrary 
reason,  that  the  Highland-born  child,  Anne 
MacVicar,  should  have  treasured,  all  her  life 
long,  the  memory  of  what  was  to  her  eyes  a 
scene  of  unexampled  beauty.  "  Colonel  Schuy- 
ler possessed,"  she  says,  "  about  two  miles  on 
a  stretch  of  that  rich  and  level  champain." 
She  grows  almost  "  Homeric  "  in  her  ecstasy 
over  the  mingling  of  "the  wild  magnificence 
of  nature  amidst  the  smiling  scenes  produced 
by  varied  and  successful  cultivation."  Besides 
the  Schuyler's  mainland  plantation  they  owned 
an  island,  a  mile  long  and  a  quarter-mile  wide, 
the  haunt  most  delighted  in  by  our  author  in 
her  girlhood. 

"  Imagine  a  little  Egypt,  yearly  overflowed,  and  of  the 
most  redundan  fertility.  It  produced,  with  a  slight  de- 
gree of  culture,  the  most  abundant  crops  of  wheat,  hay, 
and  flax,  and  was  a  most  valuable  fishing-place.  The 
background  of  the  landscape  was  a  solemn  and  inter- 
minable forest,  varied,  here  and  there,  by  rising  grounds, 
near  streams  where  birch  and  hickory,  maple  and  pop- 
lar, cheered  the  eye  with  a  lighter  green,  through  the  pre- 
vailing shade  of  dusky  pines." 

As  the  heart  of  the  paradise,  stood  the 
roomy  brick  house  of  two  stories  and  an  attic, 
that    yet — the   reminiscent    annalist    admits — 


Two  Schuyler  Homesteads       201 

'  had  no  pretension  to  grandeur,  and  very 
little  to  elegance."  The  "  large  portico,  with 
a  few  steps  leading  up  to  it  and  floored  like  a 
room,"  known  to  the  Dutch  as  a  "  stoop," 
which  word  she  seems  never  to  have  caught,* 
was  a  pleasing  novelty  to  her.  She  lingers 
fondly  upon  the  vine-roofed  "  appendage  com- 
mon to  all  houses  belonging  to  persons  in  easy 
circumstances  here."  A  shelf  under  the  eaves 
was  built  for  the  express  accommodation  of 
the  "  little  birds  domesticated  there." 

The  extension  in  the  rear  of  the  house  was 
the  refuge  of  the  family  in  winter  when  the 
"  spacious  summer  rooms  would  have  been  in- 
tolerably cold,  and  the  smoke  of  prodigious 
wood-fires  would  have  sullied  the  elegantly 
clean  furniture."  Behind  the  family  residence 
were  the  servants'  houses,  immense  barns,  and 
stables. 

Such  was  the  home  over  which  Margaritta 
Schuyler  presided — a  gracious  queen  in  her 
circle,  the  best  in  Albany  and  in  the  Province 
— for  over  twenty  years,  before  adversity  came 
near  enough  to  her  to  darken  or  chasten  her 
buoyant  spirit.  A  part  of  each  winter  was 
spent  in  New  York,  a  month  or  two,  in  spring 
and  autumn,  in  the  handsome  house  in  Albany 


202       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

belonging  to  her  husband.  Occasionally,  the 
home  at  "  The  Flatts  "  was  closed  for  the  whole 
winter.  She  always  came  back  to  it  gladly. 
The  only  drawback  to  her  wedded  happiness 
was  that  she  had  no  children  of  her  own,  but 
there  were  nephews  and  nieces  in  such  abund- 
ance in  the  large  family  connection  that  the 
house,  if  not  the  great  loving  heart  of  the  mis- 
tress, was  always  full  and  gay  with  young  faces 
and  merry  voices.  By  the  time  she  was  forty 
she  was  "  Aunt  Schuyler"  to  scores  of  young 
Albanians  besides  those  who  had  the  claim  of 
blood-kindred  upon  her.  The  Lady  Bounti- 
ful of  the  few  poor  whites  and  the  many 
dusky  neighbours  who  looked  to  her  for  help 
and  counsel,  she  shone,  a  star  of  the  first 
magnitude,  in  English  assemblies,  by  virtue  of 
her  perfect  breeding  and  her  sunny  nature 
and  conversational  talents.  She  was,  par  Emi- 
nence, the  leading  spirit  in  the  homelier  cliques 
of  Albany  worthies'  society,  as  well  sketched 
in  Florence  Wilford's  Dominie  Frelinghausen 
as  early  New  England  coteries  in  Old  Town 
Folks. 

Her  Scotch  eulogist  pays  a  well-merited 
tribute  to  Madam  Schuyler's  grace  of  adapta- 
tion to  her  environment : 


Two  Schuyler  Homesteads       203 

"It  was  one  of  Aunt  Schuyler's  many  singular  merits 
that,  after  acting  for  a  time  a  distinguished  part  in  this 
comparatively  refined  society," — that  of  English  officers 
and  New  York  fashionables, — "where  few  were  so  much 
admired  and  esteemed,  she  could  return  to  the  homely- 
good  sense  and  primitive  manners  of  her  fellow  citizens 
at  Albany,  free  from  fastidiousness  and  disgust." 

The  even  tenor  of  a  beautiful  life  was 
broken  up  by  the  French  and  Indian  War. 
In  1747,  while  Colonel  Schuyler  was  on  duty 
as  a  member  of  the  Provincial  Assembly  in 
New  York  City,  Madam  Schuyler  was  in  peril 
of  life  and  property  from  marauding  bands  of 
savages.  Cattle  were  killed  and  driven  away 
from  neighbouring  farms  ;  solitary  travellers  on 
the  road  between  Albany  and  Schenectady 
were  murdered  and,  of  course,  scalped,  scalps 
being  legal  tender  from  the  Indians  to  the 
French  Government.  By  the  orders  of  the  ab- 
sent master,  The  Flatts  was  stockaded  to  ac- 
commodate a  hundred  men,  and  a  company  of 
British  soldiers  was  stationed  there  for  a  few 
weeks.  Orders  were  then  sent  for  their  with- 
drawal that  they  might  join  other  troops  at 
Greenbush.  Madam  Schuyler  made  a  per- 
sonal appeal  to  the  officers  in  command  to 
leave  a  guard  in  her  house,  and,  when  this 
was  unavailing,  petitioned  the  Council  in  New 


204       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

York  for  protection  until  she  could  remove 
her  effects  to  Albany.  The  Council  laid  the 
case  before  Governor  Clinton,  who  "gave  an 
evasive  reply  and  left  the  troops  at  Green- 
bush."  The  deserted  fort  at  the  Flatts  owed 
its  safety  to  the  fidelity  of  the  Mohawks  at- 
tached to  the  Colonel  and  his  wife  by  years  of 
kindness  and  mutual  good  will. 

In  1755,  while  the  expedition  to  Crown 
Point  was  organising,  a  force  of  three  thou- 
sand provincials  was  encamped  about  Albany, 
most  of  them  on  grounds  belonging  to  Colonel 
Schuyler.  Within  sight  of  the  upper  windows 
of  The  Flatts,  Sir  William  Johnson,  in  war- 
paint and  blanket,  led  his  Mohawks  in  the 
war-dance  about  the  council-fire.  An  ox — 
perhaps  from  the  herds  fattened  upon  the 
Schuyler  meadows — was  roasted  whole  in  the 
open  air,  and  Sir  William  with  his  sword  hewed 
off  the  first  slice  for  the  feast,  or  gorge,  that 
followed. 

"  I  shall  be  glad  if  they  fight  as  eagerly  as 
they  ate  their  ox  and  drank  their  wine  !  "  was 
the  dry  comment  of  a  New  England  spectator. 

In  1758,  the  house  itself  was  filled  with  sol- 
diers. Companies  were  encamped  upon  the 
lawn  and  in  the  barns  ;  their  officers  were  the 


Two  Schuyler  Homesteads        205 

guests  of  the  widowed  mistress  of  The  Flatts. 
Colonel  Philip  Schuyler  had  gone  to  his  final 
rest  in  February  of  that  year.  The  turmoils 
of  wars  and  threatening  of  wars  granted  his 
wife  no  leisure  for  mourning.  Ticonderoga 
was  to  be  attacked — "  Taken,"  said  the  con- 
fident leader  of  the  expedition.  The  first 
detachment  quartered  upon  the  premises,  fort- 
unately for  but  one  night,  was  led  by  Colonel 
Charles  Lee.  In  recalling  his  subsequent  ca- 
reer as  aide-de-camp  to  the  King  of  Poland, 
Russian  officer  and  duelist,  treasonable  pris- 
oner in  a  British  camp,  insolent  and  insubor- 
dinate runaway  at  the  Battle  of  Monmouth, 
we  smile  grimly  at  our  gentle  Mrs.  Grant's  epi- 
gram, "  Lee,  of  frantic  celebrity."  Unlike  the 
rest  of  the  officers,  he  made  no  pretense  of 
paying  for  food  for  his  men  and  horses,  but 
foraged,  as  in  an  enemy's  country,  and  when 
Madam  Schuyler  mildly  remonstrated  with 
him  on  the  spoliation  of  her  property,  swore 
violently  to  her  face. 

"  Her  countenance  never  altered,"  the  nar- 
rative continues,  "and  she  used  every  argu- 
ment to  restrain  the  rage  of  her  domestics  and 
the  clamour  of  her  neighbours,  who  were 
treated  in  the  same  manner." 


206       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

The  second  detachment  was  commanded  by 
the  young  Lord  Howe,  "  the  noblest  English- 
man that  has  appeared  in  my  time,  and  the 
best  soldier  in  the  British  army,"  wrote  Gen- 
eral Wolfe  to  his  father.  "  A  character  of 
ancient  times,"  said  Pitt  to  Grenville.  "  A 
complete  model  of  military  virtues."  To  his 
indignant  comments  upon  Lee's  behaviour, 
Madam  Schuyler  replied,  temperately  and 
gracefully,  that  she  "  could  not  be  captious 
with  her  deliverers  from  the  danger  so  immi- 
nent,"— the  advance  of  the  French — "  on  ac- 
count of  a  single  instance  of  irregularity." 
She  "only  regretted  that  they  should  have 
deprived  her  of  her  wonted  pleasure  in  freely 
bestowing  whatever  could  advance  the  service 
or  refresh  the  exhausted  troops." 

Hostess  and  guest  grew  very  fond  of  one 
another  during  Lord  Howe's  brief  visit.  On 
the  morning  of  his  departure,  Madam  ap- 
peared in  season  for  the  breakfast  eaten  in 
the  grey  of  the  July  dawn,  and  served  him 
with  her  own  hands.  "  I  will  not  object," 
smiled  the  young  nobleman.  "  It  is  hard  to 
say  when  I  shall  again  breakfast  with  a 
lady." 

At  parting,  she  kissed  him  as  she  might  her 


Two  Schuyler  Homesteads        207 

son,  and  could  not  restrain  her  tears — "  a 
weakness  she  did  not  often  give  way  to." 

The  disastrous  battle  was  fought  July  8, 
1758.  Three  days  afterward,  "  Pedrom," 
Colonel  Schuyler's  brother,  like  the  rest  of 
the  household,  on  the  feverish  alert,  saw  a 
bare-headed  express  rider  galloping  madly 
along  the  road  from  the  north,  and  ran  down 
the  lane  leading  to  the  highway,  to  challenge 
him  for  news.  The  messenger  shrieked  out 
one  sentence  without  pausing  : 

"  Lord  Howe  is  killed !  " 

"  The  death  of  that  one  man  was  the  ruin 
of  fifteen  thousand,"  says  a  historian.  And  a 
contemporary, — "  In  Lord  Howe  the  soul  of 
General  Abercrombie's  army  seemed  to  ex- 
pire." 

Madam  Schuyler  mourned  for  him  with 
bitterness  amazing  even  to  those  who  knew 
her  admiration  for  "  his  merit  and  magnanim- 
ity." She  was  aroused  from  her  grief  and 
became  her  majestic,  efficient  self  when  trans- 
ports, that  same  evening,  brought  down  the 
river,  and  to  her  door,  a  host  of  the  wounded, 
some  dangerously  hurt,  and  among  the  killed 
the  beloved  young  leader.  His  body  lay  in  a 
darkened  room   in   the   mansion    until   it  was 


208       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

borne  away  for  burial.  The  great  barn  and 
every  other  outhouse  were  fitted  up  as  hospi- 
tals. Madam  Schuyler  tore  up  bed-  and 
table-linen  for  bandages,  and  scraped  lint  with 
her  young  nieces,  which  they  applied  under 
the  surgeon's  directions,  while  all  her  servants 
were  kept  busy  cooking  and  otherwise  attend- 
ing to  the  wants  of  the  sufferers.  Lee  was 
among  the  wounded,  and  Madam  treated 
him  with  especial  tenderness,  not  a  word  or 
a  look  reminding  him  of  how  they  had  parted. 
"  He  swore  in  his  vehement  manner,"  our 
chronicler  says  primly,  "  that  he  was  sure  there 
would  be  a  place  reserved  for  Madam  in 
heaven,  though  no  other  woman  should  be 
there,  and  that  he  should  wish  for  nothing 
better  than  to  share  her  final  destiny." 

In  the  year  following  the  Battle  of  Ticon- 
deroga,  Madam  Schuyler  and  the  city  of  Al- 
bany sustained  a  serious  loss  in  the  strange 
departure  of  Dominie  Frelinghausen  (other- 
wise Frelinghuysen)  for  Holland.  The  event 
was  characteristic  of  him  and  of  the  commun- 
ity in  which  he  laboured.  The  younger  mem- 
bers of  his  flock  had  danced  at  a  ball  given  by 
the  English  officers  quartered  in  Albany,  and, 
although  warned  and  reprimanded  by  him,  car- 


Two  Schuyler  Homesteads       209 

ried  recalcitrancy  to  the  wicked  extent  of  at- 
tending amateur  theatricals  gotten  up  by  the 
same  tempters  to  worldly  dissipations.  The 
dominie  preached  openly  and  admonished  pri- 
vately with  such  vehemence  that  a  graceless 
sinner  left  upon  his  door-step  one  night  a  walk- 
ing-stick, a  pair  of  stout  shoes,  a  loaf  of  bread, 
and  four  shillings  done  up  in  paper.  He  in- 
terpreted the  gift  as  it  was  meant  to  be  taken, 
as  a  token  that  his  work  in  this  cure  of  souls 
was  ended,  and  that  he  must  betake  himself  to 
some  other  field.  Cut  to  the  quick  of  a  sensi- 
tive nature  by  the  hint  and  the  manner  of  con- 
veying it,  he  took  leave  of  no  one,  but  sailed 
the  next  week  for  Holland,  and  was  lost  on 
the  voyage. 

Another  calamity  befell  the  mistress  of  The 
Flatts  in  1763,  in  the  destruction  of  her  house 
by  fire.  An  officer,  riding  out  from  Albany 
to  pay  his  respects  to  her,  found  her  seated  in 
an  arm-chair  under  one  of  the  cherry-trees  that 
lined  the  short  lane,  unconscious  of  what  the 
horseman  had  espied  from  the  highway,  the 
heavy  smoke  rising  from  the  roof  of  the  build- 
ing behind  her.  When  he  called  her  attention 
to  it,  she  summoned  all  the  servants  and,  still 
seated,  issued  her  orders  with  such  directness 


210       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

and  composure  that  nearly  all  the  contents  of 
the  dwelling  were  saved,  although  nothing  was 
left  of  the  building  except  the  outer  walls. 

As  an  evidence  of  the  high  esteem  in  which 
Madam  Schuyler  was  held  by  all  classes,  we 
are  told  that  in  a  few  days  the  materials  needed 
for  the  construction  of  the  new  house  were 
sent  to  her  by  various  friends,  and  the  Com- 
mandant in  Albany  detailed  "  some  of  the 
King's  workmen  "  to  assist  in  the  reconstruc- 
tion. The  new  house  was  almost  an  exact  re- 
production of  the  old,  having  been  built  upon 
the  original  foundations. 

"  It  stands  a  few  rods  from  the  river-bank, 
facing  the  east,  and  has  the  same  aspect  as 
when  built  more  than  a  century  ago." 

Margaritta  Schuyler  was  seventy-five  years 
of  age  when  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
was  signed.  Mrs.  Grant  more  than  intimates 
that  the  "  war,  which  everyone,  whatever  side 
they  may  have  taken  at  the  time,  must  look 
back  on  with  disgust  and  horror,"  was  "  abhor- 
rent to  the  feelings  and  principles "  of  her 
"  American  Lady." 

11  She  was,  by  that  time,  too  venerable  as 
well  as  respectable  to  be  insulted  for  her  prin- 
ciples," her  eulogist  asserts,  "  for  not  to  esteem 


Two  Schuyler  Homesteads       213 

Aunt  Schuyler  was  to  forfeit  all  pretensions  to 
estimation." 

Her  fellow  tribesman,  Mr.  G.  W.  Schuyler, 
declares  that  "she  was  not  a  Tory  in  the  broad 
sense  of  the  word.  She  took  middle  ground, 
and  hoped  that  a  way  might  be  found  for 
reconciliation." 

She  died,  full  of  years  and  honours,  in  1 782, 
almost  eighty-two  years  of  age. 

No  household  word  is  more  pleasantly  fa- 
miliar than  "Aunt  Schuyler's"  name  in  the 
old  home  still  tenanted  by  those  of  her  name 
and  blood.  We  link  it  with  that  of  Mrs.  Anne 
Grant  of  Laggan  as  we  stroll  through  the  low- 
browed, spacious  rooms.  Upon  the  footstool 
of  the  stately  gentlewoman,  there  sits  for  us 
the  eager-eyed  child,  modulating  her  Scotch 
accent  to  harmonise  with  the  softer  voice  of 
her  idolised  mentor,  "  whom  she  already  con- 
sidered as  her  polar  star."  Each  of  us  has  an 
anecdote  of  one  or  the  other  of  the  pair,  oddly 
matched  as  to  age,  but  friends  in  heart,  and 
destined  to  be  bound  together  in  all  of  their 
history  that  is  preserved  for  us. 

The  present  mistress  of  The  Flatts  is  the 
widow  of  Richard  Schuyler,  Esq.  With  her 
four  young  daughters   she    leads   a  peaceful, 


214       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

happy  life  in  the  dear  old  house  peopled  with 
august  shades.  Family  portraits  are  upon  the 
walls  ;  wealth  of  family  silver  in  buffets  and  on 
tables  and  sideboards  ;  fragile  treasures  of  old 
china  and  glass  that  may  have  been  used  by 
repentant — always  profane — Lee,  or  graced 
the  hasty  repast  eaten  by  candle-light,  where 
Madam  poured  out  coffee  for  the  gallant 
young  soldier  who  was  not  to  take  breakfast 
again  with  a  lady  this  side  of  eternity. 

Mrs.  Grant  is  seldom  caustic.  She  must 
have  been  a  genial,  as  well  as  a  clever,  old 
lady.  But  there  is  a  bite,  and  a  sharp  one, 
in  this  entry  in  her  bewitching  Memoirs  of 
manifold  things  and  people  besides  her  adored 
Aunt  Schuyler. 

"  Sir  Henry  Moore,  the  last  British  Governor  of  New 
York  that  I  remember,  came  up  this  summer"  (1765) 
"  to  see  Albany,  and  the  ornament  of  Albany,  Aunt 
Schuyler.  He  brought  Lady  Moore  and  his  daughter 
with  him.  They  resided  for  some  time  at  General 
Schuyler's.  I  call  him  so  by  anticipation,  for  sure  I 
am,  had  any  gifted  seer  foretold  then  what  was  to  hap- 
pen, he  would  have  been  ready  to  answer,  Is  thy  servant 
a  dog,  that  he  should  do  this  thing  ?  " 

General  Philip  Schuyler  was  the  son  of  Jo- 
hannes (II.)  Schuyler  and  Cornelia  Van  Cort- 


Two  Schuyler  Homesteads       215 

landt,  and  the  favourite  nephew  of  his  Aunt 
Margaritta.  His  uncle-in-law,  her  husband, 
showed  his  fondness  for  him  by  leaving  him 
in  his  will  (date  of  1  766)  a  part  of  the  Schuy- 
ler estate,  consisting  of  land  lying  between 
Albany  and  West  Troy.  Madam  Schuyler 
made  him  (1782)  one  of  her  ten  legatees.  Be- 
sides these  and  his  patrimonial  inheritance,  he 
was  the  owner  of  about  ten  thousand  acres, 
purchased  at  different  times  by  himself,  part 
of  this  from  the  estate  of  Jacob  Glen.  He 
was,  then,  a  rich  man,  when  he  cast  his  fort- 
unes and  his  sword  into  the  scales  on  the  side 
of  American  independence. 

What  followed  is  an  integral  part  of  the  his- 
tory of  our  country.  The  simple  recital  of  his 
deeds  in  war  and  in  peace  would  fill  more  than 
the  space  assigned  to  a  whole  chapter  of  this 
work. 

Mrs.  Grant  mentions  that  he  had,  prior  to 
1765,  "  built  a  house  near  Albany  in  the  Eng- 
lish taste,  comparatively  magnificent."  This, 
the  Schuyler  mansion,  was  erected  in  1760-61. 
It  has  suffered  marvellously  few  and  slight 
changes  during  the  century-and-a-third  that 
has  brought  Albany  up  to  its  foundations,  and 
so  far  beyond  that  it  is  now  in  the  heart  of 


216       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

our  beautiful  capital  city.  Even  in  adapting 
the  interior  to  the  usages  and  needs  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  sisterhood  that  has  con- 
verted it  into  a  refuge  for  orphan  children,  the 
size  and  arrangement  of  the  rooms  remain  as 
they  were  when  Sir  Henry  and  Lady  Moore 
were  the  guests  of  the  then  Colonel  Philip 
Schuyler,  and  Madam,  his  honoured  aunt, 
drove  in  her  chariot-and-four  from  The  Flatts 
to  dine  with  them. 

From  the  great  central  hall,  the  lofty  ceil- 
ings of  which  must  have  given  a  sense  of  vast- 
ness  to  Madam  Schuyler's  eyes,  used  to  her 
raftered,  low-pitched  rooms,  we  turn  to  the 
left  into  what  is  now  the  chapel  of  the  sister- 
hood. The  attendant  kneels,  her  face  towards 
the  altar,  and  crosses  herself.  She  has  whis- 
pered at  the  door,  that  we  will  "  please  not 
speak."  The  caution  was  not  needed.  We 
stand  with  bowed  heads  and  hearts  under 
the  weight  of  thoughts  that  met  us  upon  the 
threshold. 

For  here,  in  1777,  the  martial  host  enter- 
tained for  days  together,  as  guests,  although 
prisoners  of  war,  Burgoyne  and  his  officers, 
the  Baroness  Riedesel  and  her  children,  sent 
thither   for  safe-keeping,  after  the    Battle  of 


Two  Schuyler  Homesteads       219 

Saratoga.  Here  met  and  talked  and  planned, 
for  the  public  good,  such  leaders  of  the  Re- 
volution as  Washington,  Lafayette,  Benjamin 
Franklin,  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  Israel 
Putnam,  Charles  Lee,  and — Benedict  Arnold. 
Hither  came  a-wooing  the  most  eloquent  of 
the  ambitious  youths  of  the  embryo  repub- 
lic, Alexander  Hamilton.  He  and  Elizabeth 
Schuyler  must  have  paced  the  lordly  rooms 
times  without  number,  and  often  whispered  of 
love  in  the  embrasured  windows,  before  the 
evening  when  they  stood  together,  where  the 
altar  is  now,  to  be  pronounced  man  and  wife. 
That  was  in  1 780.  The  next  year  there  was 
a  family  party  here  to  celebrate  the  christen- 
ing of  Catherine  Van  Rensselaer  Schuyler, 
the  baby  daughter  of  General  Schuyler  and 
his  wife,  whose  youngest  born  was  her  name- 
child.  General  and  Lady  Washington  were 
sponsors  for  the  wee  lady,  an  honour  never 
forgotten  by  her  down  to  a  ripe  old  age. 

Within  our  memory,  Ex-President  Millard 
Fillmore  was  married  here  to  Mrs.  Mcintosh, 
to  whom  the  mansion  then  belonged. 

None  of  these  things  move  us  to  such  grave 
meditation  as  the,  to  us,  central  fact  of  Alex- 
ander   Hamilton's    marriage   with  the  second 


220       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

daughter  of  the  house,  whom  his  violent  tak- 
ing-off  left  a  widow,  when  his  fame  was  at  the 
brightest.  Nor  do  we  forget  that  this  bloody 
death  of  the  son-in-law  who  was  as  his  own 
child,  and  of  whom  he  was,  if  possible,  more 
proud  than  fond,  broke  General  Philip  Schuy- 
ler's heart.  Burr's  bullet  found  a  second  vic- 
tim in  him.  The  duel  was  fought  July  11, 
1804.  General  Schuyler  died  in  November 
of  the  same  year,  "  never  having  recovered 
from  the  shock." 

Mrs.  Anne  Grant  of  Laggan  (rest  her 
charitable  soul  !)  cannot  withhold  a  poetical 
lament  from  him  whom  she  labels  as  a  "bright 
exception  that,  after  all,  only  confirms  the  rule 
of  a  society  coarse  and  homely,  and  univer- 
sal dulness  of  the  new  nation,  unrelieved  save 
by  the  phosphoric  lightnings  of  the  deistical 
Franklin,  the  legitimate  father  of  the  Ameri- 
can "age  of  calculation." 

11  Forgive  me,  shade  of  the  accomplished 
Hamilton!"  she  cries,  after  the  philippic 
against  his  countrymen.  "  While  all  that  is 
lovely  in  virtue,  all  that  is  honourable  in  val- 
our, and  all  that  is  admirable  in  talent,  con- 
spire to  lament  the  early  setting  of  that 
western  star ! " 


Two  Schuyler  Homesteads        221 

Above-stairs,  we  see  the  chamber  in  which 
Burgoyne  slept  during  his  honourable  captiv- 
ity, and,  gazing  into  the  street  below,  men- 
tally compare  the  scene  with  that  which 
wearied  his  English  eyes  pending  his  ex- 
change and  release. 

The  handsome  reception-room  opposite  the 
chapel  is  wainscoted  up  to  the  ceiling  over 
the  high  mantel  ;  there  are  deep,  inviting  win- 
dow-seats in  this  and  in  the  dining-hall.  What 
were  the  state  bed-chambers  are  furnished 
with  small  white  cots.  The  "  almost  magnifi- 
cent "  mansion  is  full  of  pleasant  murmurings 
that  make  one  think  of  a  dove-cote. 

At  the  foot  of  the  staircase  we  are  con- 
fronted with  yet  another  hacked  stair-rail. 
The  attendant  tradition,  upheld  by  a  respon- 
sible writer  in  the  Magazine  of  American  His- 
tory for  July,  1884,  is  of  a  midnight  attack  by 
Tories  and  Indians  upon  General  Schuyler's 
house,  with  the  purpose  of  securing  his  person. 
The  family,  awakened  by  the  noise  of  their  en- 
trance, retreated  to  an  upper  chamber,  from 
the  window  of  which  the  General  fired  a  pistol 
to  alarm  the  garrison  in  the  town.  As  Mrs. 
Schuyler  reached  the  room  she  missed  baby 
Catherine,  and  was,  with  difficulty,  held  back 


222        More  Colonial  Homesteads 


by  her  husband  from   rushing  down-stairs  to 
find   her.      Margaritta,    the    third  daughter,   a 

young  woman 
twenty-three 
years  of  age, 
slipped  past  her 
father  and  flew 
down  the  stair- 
case to  the 
cradle  on  the 
first  floor.  In 
the  dim  light  she 
was  not  per- 
ceived by  the 
party  searching 
the  lower  part  of 
the  house,  and, 
i  ncidentally, 
stealing  silver 
and  other  valuables,  until  she  gained  the  stairs 
on  her  way  back,  the  baby  clasped  in  her  arms. 
Then  an  Indian  hurled  a  tomahawk  at  her  with 
such  good  will  that  it  buried  itself  in  the  railing. 
The  brave  girl  cried  out  to  the  raiders  as 
she  ran,  that  her  father  had  gone  to  arouse 
the  town,  and  escaped  with  her  prize  to  the 
upper   room.     The    General,  taking  the  cue, 


MAJOR-QENERAL  PHILIP  SCHUYLER. 

FROM    A    PAINTING    BY    COL.    TRUMBULL. 


Two  Schuyler  Homesteads       223 

shouted  the  word  of  command  through  the 
open  window,  and  the  miscreants  fled,  bearing 
off  as  much  of  the  family  plate  with  them  as 
they  could  carry. 

"  Why," — asks  one  of  us,  struggling  to  keep 
down  the  rising  sense  of  the  ridiculous  excited 
by  this  third  mutilated  rail, — "Why  should  a 
tomahawk  have  an  especial  proclivity  for 
balustrades  ?  " 

Yet,  seriously,  the  reason  is  plain.  The 
staircase,  as  I  have  said  elsewhere,  was  a  con- 
spicuous feature  in  the  colonial  homestead, 
and  a  permanent.  Hacked  walls  and  doors 
have  been  renewed,  and  broken  furniture 
mended,  or  thrown  away.  The  mute  remain- 
ing witnesses  to  barbarities  that  curdle  our 
blood  in  the  telling  and  the  hearing  are  not 
to  be  lightly  esteemed.  They  are  illustrated 
history. 


VIII 

DOUGHOREGAN  MANOR:  THE  CARROLL 
HOMESTEAD,  MARYLAND 

IN  the  Maryland  Gazette  of  Thursday,  Feb- 
ruary 14,  1765,  appeared  a  paragraph, 
which  would  now  figure  among  society  items  : 

"  Tuesday  night,  arrived  at  his  fathers  house 
in  Town,  Charles  Carroll,  Jun'r  Esq.  (lately 
from  London  by  way  of  Virginia)  after  about 
sixteen  years'  absence  from  his  Native  country 
at  his  studies  and  on  his  Travels." 

The  Maryland  Gazette  was  published  at 
Annapolis,  then  an  inconsiderable  town.  The 
best  house  in  it  (still  standing)  was  the  re- 
sidence of  Charles  Carroll,  Senior,  generally 
known  in  the  American  line  as  "  Carroll  of 
Annapolis."  This  gentleman,  in  letters  writ- 
ten to  his  absent  son,  two  and  three  years  be- 
fore the  date  set  down  above,  gives  an  abstract 
of  the  family  history.      The  traveller  had  insti- 

224 


Doughoregan  Manor 


225 


tuted  inquiries  into  the  pedigree  of  what  he 
knew  to  be  a  good  old  Irish  house,  and  ap- 
pealed to  his  father  for  assistance  : 

"  I  find  by  history,  as  well  as  by  the  genealogy," 
wrote  the  latter,  "  that  the  country  of  Ely  O'Carroll  and 
Dirguill  which  comprehended 
most  of  the  Kings'  and  Queen's 
countys,  were  the  territories, 
and  that  they  were  princes 
thereof.  .  .  .  Your  grand- 
father left  Europe  and  arrived 
in  Maryland,  October  1st, 
1688,  with  the  commission  of 
Attorney  -  General.  He,  on 
the  19th  of  February,  1693, 
married  Mary  Darn  all,  the 
daughter  of  Colonel  Henry 
Darnall.  I  was  born  April 
2nd,  1702.  Your  mother  was  the  daughter  of  Clement 
Brooke  Esq.,  of  Prince  George's  County  ;  you  were  born, 
September  8th,  1737.  This  is  as  much  as  I  can  furnish 
towards  our  pedigree,  with  the  translation  I  obtained  in 
Paris." 

Miss  Kate  Mason  Rowland,  in  her  valuable 
biography  of  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  sup- 
plies us  with  particulars  which  were  too  well 
known  to  the  young  student-wanderer  to  need 
repetition.  From  these  we  gather  that  Charles 
(I.)  Carroll  was  twenty-eight  years  of  age  at 


CARROLL  COAT  OF  ARMS. 


226       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

the  date  of  his  immigration  (1688)  ;  that  he 
had  been  educated,  for  the  most  part,  in 
France  ;  after  leaving-  the  French  university 
he  was  admitted  as  a  student  to  the  Inner 
Temple  in  London,  in  1685,  and,  when  his 
term  there  was  over,  was  secretary  to  Lord 
Powis,  one  of  the  ministers  of  James  II.  By 
his  patron's  advice  he  emigrated  to  America, 
recommended  to  Charles  Calvert,  "  the  Lord 
Baron  of  Baltimore."  The  Irishman  landed 
upon  our  shores  at  an  unlucky  time.  One 
month  later  the  proprietary  government  of 
Lord  Baltimore  was  set  aside  by  orders  from 
England,  and  Charles  Carroll  found  his  com- 
mission as  Attorney-General  worthless.  Loy- 
alty to  his  chief  and  to  his  religion  wrought 
with  his  Celtic  blood  to  get  him  into  much 
and  various  sorts  of  trouble  in  the  ensuing 
decade.  He  wrote  letters  to  Baltimore  of 
indignant  sympathy  ;  he  made  hot-headed 
speeches  against  the  leaders  of  "  the  Protes- 
tant Revolution  "  ;  he  sneered  at  the  pettiness 
of  the  party  in  power,  managing  by  these  and 
other  imprudences  to  get  into  prison  more 
than  once,  into  disfavour  with  anti-Catholic 
officials,  and  so  to  endear  himself  to  the  de- 
posed,  but  still   wealthy  and  powerful,   Balti- 


Doughoregan  Manor  227 

more,  that  he  secured  for  his  partisan  in  1699 
a  grant  to  the  estates  incorporated,  finally,  un- 
der the  name  of  Doughoregan  (then  spelled 
Doororegan)  Manor.  Furthermore,  a  part  of 
this  grant  was  coupled  with  the  remark  that  it 
was  purposely  assigned  as  near  as  possible  to 
one  of  his  Lordship's  own  manors,  in  order 
that  he,  Baltimore,  might  have  "  the  benefit 
of  Mr.  Carroll's  society." 

His  grandson-namesake  of  Carrollton  adds 
that  his  ancestor  was,  also,  made  "  Lord  Balti- 
more's Agent,  Receiver-General,  Keeper  of 
the  Great  Seal,  and  Register  of  the  Land 
Office.  He  enjoyed  these  appointments  until 
the  year  171  7,  when  the  Government  and  As- 
sembly passed  Laws  depriving  the  Roman 
Catholics   of  their  remaining  privileges." 

Charles  (I.)  Carroll  married  twice.  His  first 
wife  died  in  1690,  leaving  no  issue.  His  sec- 
ond, Mary  Darnall,  bore  him  ten  children  in 
the  first  twenty  years  of  their  wedded  life,  half 
of  whom  died  in  childhood.  Henry,  the  heir- 
apparent,  was  educated  abroad,  and  died  on 
the  homeward  voyage,  "within  about  six  days' 
saile  of  the  Capes  of  Virginia,"  in  the  twenty- 
third  year  of  his  age.  His  brother  Charles 
(II.),  then  but  seventeen,  had  been  left  at  the 


228        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Jesuit  College  of  St.  Omer's,  in  French  Flan- 
ders, when  Henry  sailed  for  America.  His 
brother  Daniel  was  with  him.  The  father 
wrote  to  them  July  7,  1 7 19,  informing  them 
of  Henry's  death  of  April  10th.  He  exhorted 
them  to  pray  for  the  repose  of  their  brother's 
soul,  saying  that  ten  pounds  would  be  remitted 
to  them  to  be  expended  in  masses  for  the  same 
purpose,  and  alluded  to  their  mother's  design 
of  going  abroad  the  next  spring  with  two  of 
her  daughters. 

The  purpose  may  have  been  frustrated  by 
her  husband's  ill-health,  for  he  survived  his 
eldest  son  but  a  year,  dying  in  July,  1720. 

Charles  (II.)  completed  his  academic  course 
before  returning  to  America.  He  arrived  at 
home  in  1723,  when  he  was  barely  of  age. 
During  the  minority  of  the  heir-apparent,  the 
extensive  estates  accumulated  by  his  father, 
and  bequeathed  to  his  children,  were  managed 
by  their  guardian-cousin,  Mr.  James  Carroll, 
and  the  home  plantation  by  Madam  Mary 
Carroll,  the  widow  of  the  first  Charles.  The 
worthy  gentlewoman  lived  to  be  the  dowager 
of  the  Annapolis  house,  her  son  Charles  hav- 
ing married  his  cousin,  Elizabeth  Brooke,  and 
installed  her  as  mistress  of  his  home.      Their 


Doughoregan  Manor  229 

only  child,  Charles  (III.),  was  born  Septem- 
ber 19,  1737. 

That  they  had  no  other  offspring,  instead  of 
moving  the  parents  to  keep  him  in  their  jealous 
sight,  made  it  the  more  solemnly  obligatory 
upon  them  to  deprive  themselves  of  the  joy  of 
his  society  in  order  to  give  him  the  education 
demanded  by  his  rank  and  wealth.  He  was 
but  eleven  years  old  when  he  was  placed  at 
St.  Omer's.  His  companions  on  the  voyage 
and  in  the  college  were  his  cousin,  John  Car- 
roll, destined  to  become  Archbishop  of  Balti- 
more, and  Robert  ^Brent,  a  Virginia  boy,  who 
afterwards  married  into  the  Carroll  family. 
Six  years  were  passed  at  St.  Omer's,  one  at 
Rheims  in  another  Jesuit  college,  an  eighth 
year  in  the  College  of  Louis  le  Grand,  at 
Paris.  We  read  of  a  visit  paid  to  Charles, 
Jr.,  in  Paris,  by  his  father,  just  before  the  lad 
attained  his  majority.  That  same  year  (1757), 
or  the  next,  he  was  admitted  as  a  student  of 
law  at  the  Temple,  in  London. 

The  routine  was  hereditary,  and  so  much 
the  custom  with  the  wealthier  colonists  that 
this  part  of  our  story  tells  itself.  Law  was 
the  profession,  par  eminence,  for  a  gentleman's 
son.    The  necessity,  or  the  binding  expediency, 


230       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

that  he  should  have  a  nominal  profession  of 
some  sort  was  already  recognised  in  a  country 
where  every  fortune  was  still  in  making,  and  a 
career  was  a  matter  of  individual  effort,  not  of 
patronage. 

The  correspondence  between  father  and  son 
was  intimate  and  voluminous.  With  just  ap- 
preciation of  the  position  his  successor  would 
take  in  public  affairs,  Charles  Carroll  of  An- 
napolis kept  him  posted  as  to  the  strained 
relations,  already  apparent,  between  the  Col- 
ony and  the  Home  government,  and  dwelt 
with  yet  more  feeling  upon  the  disabilities  of 
Roman  Catholics.  Miss  Rowland  sets  these 
before  us  plainly,  and  refrains,  with  the  admir- 
able taste  that  characterises  her  work  throuo-h- 
out,  from  comments  that  would  be  superfluous  : 

"  The  discriminating  test-oaths,  enforced  to  protect 
the  Hanoverian  dynasty  from  the  Jacobites,  excluded 
Roman  Catholics  from  the  Assembly,  prevented  them 
/rom  holding  office,  denied  them  the  privilege  of  the 
suffrage.  They  were  not  allowed  the  public  exercise  of 
their  religion.  For  this  reason  gentlemen  of  means  had 
their  private  chapels,  and  Charles  Carroll  had  one  in  his 
town  house  in  Annapolis,  as  well  as  at  Doughoregan 
Manor." 

Mr.  Carroll's  letters  show  how  the  flagrant 


Doughoregan  Manor  233 

injustice  of  all  this  ground  into  his  haughty 
soul.  In  a  masterly  resume  (dated  1 760)  of  the 
causes  leading  to  the  oppressive  enactments, 
he  says: 

"  Maryland  was  granted  to  Cecilius,  Lord  Baltimore, 
a  Roman  Catholic.  All  persons  believing  in  Jesus  Christ 
were,  by  the  charter,  promised  the  enjoyment,  not  only 
of  religious,  but  of  civil,  liberty.  ...  All  sects  contin- 
ued in  a  peaceful  enjoyment  of  these  privileges  until  the 
Revolution,  when  a  mob,  encouraged  by  the  example  set 
them  in  England,  rebelled  against  the  Lord  Baltimore, 
stript  him  of  his  government,  and  his  officers  of  their 
places.  Then  the  crown  assumed  the  government  ;  the 
Toleration  Act,  as  I  may  call  it,  was  repealed,  and  sev- 
eral acts  to  hinder  us  from  a  free  exercise  of  our  religion 
were  passed.     .     .     . 

""To  these  the  Proprietary  was  not  only  mean  enough 
to  assent,  but  he  deprived  several  Roman  Catholics  em- 
ployed in  the  management  of  his  private  patrimony  and 
revenue,  of  their  places.  ...  At  last,  in  1756,  an 
Act  was  passed  by  all  the  branches  of  the  Legislature 
here  to  double  tax  us,  and  to  this  law  the  present  Pro- 
prietor had  the  meanness  to  assent,  tho'  he  knew  us 
innocent  of  the  calumnies  raised  against  us. 

"  From  what  I  have  said  I  leave  you  to  judge 
whether  Maryland  be  a  tolerable  residence  for  a  Roman 
Catholic."  ! 

So   active  was  his  discontent  that  he   actu- 
ally made  overtures  to  the  French  king  for  a 

1  Family  Papers,  Rev.  Thomas  Sims  Lee. 


234       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

grant  in  what  is  now  the  State  of  Arkansas, 
then  a  wilderness  claimed  by  France.  His  in- 
tention to  remove  thither,  and  there  found  a 
new  home,  if  not  a  sort  of  refuge  colony  for 
his  brethren  in  the  faith,  was  not  relinquished 
for  several  years.  It  is  interesting  in  this  con- 
nection to  note  that  another  branch  of  the 
Carroll  family  was  subsequently  established  in 
Arkansas,  and  bore  an  important  part  in  the 
upbuilding  of  territory  and  State. 

Mingled  with  gossip  of  neighbourhood  and 
family  affairs,  and  explicit  directions  as  to 
his  son's  homeward  passage,  are  mention  of 
Charles  III.'s  crack  racer,  Nimble,  genealogical 
details,  and  talk  of  the  library  the  traveller  was 
to  bring  to  Maryland  with  him.  Then,  in 
1764,  we  come  plump  upon  a  matter  more 
serious  to  both  of  the  correspondents  than  any 
of  the  subjects  just  named.  The  heir  and  only 
son  was  in  love,  and,  judging  from  the  lasting 
impression  made  upon  his  imagination,  if  not 
his  heart,  by  the  "Louisa "of  his  letters — the 
44  Miss  Baker  "  of  the  senior's — was  more  deeply 
enamoured  than  at  any  other  period  in  his 
life. 

The  American  father  hopes  "  Miss  Baker 
may  be  endowed  with  all  the  good  sense  and 


Doughoregan  Manor  235 

good  nature  you  say  she  has,"  gives  his  con- 
sent to  the  proposed  alliance,  and  plunges 
forthwith  into  an  "exhibit"  of  his  means  which 
are  the  son's  expectations.  Said  exhibit  is  to 
be  laid  before  the  prospective  English  father- 
in-law.  With  "a  clear  revenue  of  at  least 
^"1800  per  annum,"  and  upwards  of  40,000 
acres  of  lands  annually  increasing  in  value, 
not  to  mention  Annapolis  lots  and  houses,  six 
hundred  pounds  of  family  plate,  and  nearly 
three  hundred  adult  slaves  on  his  various  plant- 
ations, the  handsome  young  colonist  was  a 
desirable  parti  in  a  day  when  money  was  four- 
fold more  valuable  than  in  ours.  The  fair  one 
who  had  had  the  good  fortune  to  attract  him 
was  not  rich  in  her  own  right,  nor  would  her 
father  be  able  to  endow  her  amply  even 
when,  as  he  promises  to  do,  he  had  made 
"his  daughter's  share  equal  in  his  estate  with 
his  son's." 

"  Mr.  Baker's  letter  to  you  speaks  him  to 
be  a  man  of  sense  and  honour,"  conceded 
Charles  Carroll  of  Annapolis,  and  evidently 
considering  the  matter  as  good  as  settled, 
wrote  out  in  due  form  a  proposal  for  a  "set- 
tlement and  gift "  to  his  son  and  "  for  the 
lady's  jointure."     She  must  have  been  hard  to 


236       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

please  if  these  had  not  suited  her  ambitions, 
and  singularly  cold  of  heart  had  she  failed  to 
approve  of  her  suitor.  In  the  prime  of  early 
manhood,  graceful  in  person  and  most  fascin- 
ating in  manner,  a  scholar,  sweet  of  temper 
and  devout  of  spirit  withal,  a  favourite  "  in  a 
circle  of  friends  of  not  a  little  consequence  and 
fashion,"  in  what  respect  or  particular  was  he 
adjudged  deficient  when  weighed  in  the  scales 
of  maidenly  caprice  and  paternal  reason  ?  Or, 
was  the  rupture  that  ended  loverly  dreams 
and  fatherly  negotiations  to  be  accounted  for 
by  the  convenient  formula  of  "  fault  on  both 
sides  "  ? 

Miss  Rowland,  more  satisfactory  upon  most 
points  than  other  of  our  hero's  biographers,  is 
not  a  whit  more  explicit  here  : 

"  He  was  to  bring  over  thoroughbred  horses  and  a 
gamekeeper,  and,  doubtless,  the  newest  London  fash- 
ions in  dress  and  equipage.  That  he  had  hoped  to 
bring  home  an  English  bride  to  his  Maryland  Manor  is 
evident.  But  for  some  reason  his  suit  failed,  and  the 
romance  came  to  an  untimely. end. 

"  The  estate  of  Carrollton  in  Frederick  County  was  to 
be  settled  upon  him  on  his  return  home,  and  he  was 
to  be  known  henceforward  as  Charles  Carroll  of  Car- 
rollton." ' 

1  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  by  Kate  Mason  Rowland,  p.  68. 


Doughoregan  Manor  237 

This  rapid  summary  of  the  leading  events  in 
his  early  life  brings  us  to  the  pregnant  para- 
graph in  the  Annapolis  newspaper  published 
on  St.  Valentine's  day  in  the  year  of  Our  Lord 

1765. 

Mistress  Elizabeth  Brooke   Carroll  was  not 

among  those  who  welcomed  her  son's  return 
to  home  and  country.  She  had  died  in  1 761, 
after  a  long  and  painful  illness.  That  is  a 
common  tale,  too,  but  none  the  less  pitiful  for 
the  frequent  telling.  Among  the  sorest  of  the 
privations  inseparable  from  residence  in  a  hemi- 
sphere where  educational  processes  and  polite 
usages  were  without  form  and  void,  was  the 
rending  of  the  tenderest  ties  of  heart  and  kind- 
red. We  sigh  in  futile  sympathy  with  the 
mother  whose  eyes,  strained  to  watch  the 
glimmer  upon  the  horizon  of  the  cruelly  vast 
watery  highway  of  the  sail  that  bore  her  boy 
away  from  her  arms,  were  to  close  in  their  last 
sleep  without  ever  seeing  him  again.  And 
beside  him  she  had  no  other  child  ! 

It  would  loosen  the  tension  of  our  heart- 
strings to  be  assured  that  she  accompanied  her 
husband  in  the  transatlantic  journey  he  made 
in  1 75 1.  She  was  not  with  him  in  1757,  for 
Mr.  Carroll  writes  from  London  to  his  son  in 


238        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Paris  early  in  1758,  that  a  friend  newly  landed 
in  England,  "  saw  your  mother  ;  that  she  was 
well  and  in  high  spirits,  having  heard  of  my 
safe  arrival."  In  1753  the  father  had  directed 
the  seventeen-year-old  boy  to  have  his  likeness 
taken  by  a  "good  painter." 

"  With  your  mother  I  shall  be  glad  to  have 
your  picture  In  the  compass  of  15  inches  by  12." 

Were  her  hungry  eyes  ever  gladdened  by  the 
sight  of  it  ? 

A  letter  from  Mrs.  Carroll,  treasured  by  the 
son,  and  after  him  by  his  heirs,  contains  this 
touching  clause : 

"  You  are  always  at  heart  my  dear  Charley, 
and  I  have  never  tired  asking  your  papa  ques- 
tions about  you.  I  daily  pray  to  God  to  grant 
you  His  grace  above  all  things,  and  to  take 
you  under  His  protection." 

Her  son's  lot  in  life  was  distinctly  sketched 
for  him  by  circumstance,  or  so  he  supposed. 

"  Who  is  so  happy  as  an  independent  man  ? 
and  who  is  more  independent  than  a  private 
gentleman  possessed  of  a  clear  estate,  and 
moderate  in  his  desires  ? "  are  queries  from 
his  pen  that  savour  of  the  calm  aspirations  of 
the  English  country  gentlemen.  So  honest 
was  the   utterance  .that  he  must  have   aston- 


Doughoregan  Manor  239 

ished  himself  when  he  sprang  into  the  arena 
of  provincial  politics  as  one  of  the  "  Assertors 
of  British-American  Privileges,"  discarded  the 
latest  London  fashions  for  homespun  woven 
upon  his  own  plantation,  and  boldly  predicted 
the  time  when  America  would  be  superior  to 
the  rest  of  the  world  in  arts  and  sciences  and 
in  the  use  of  arms. 

"  Matrimony  is,  at  present,  but  little  the  sub- 
ject of  my  thoughts,"  he  said  cynically  to  a 
confidential  English  correspondent,  when  he 
had  for  eight  months  sustained  the  battery  of 
matronly  and  maidenly  eyes  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  "  catch  "  of  the  Commonwealth.  A 
month  later  he  moralised  upon  the  emptiness 
of  passion  "  which  exists  nowhere  but  in  ro- 
mance." He  was  now  in  his  twenty-ninth 
year,  and  of  the  opinion  that  a  man  of  twenty 
should  have  enough  common  sense  to  marry, 
"  if  he  marries  from  affection,  from  esteem, 
and  from  a  sense  of  merit  in  his  wife." 

On  August  26th  of  the  next  year  (1766)  he 
informs  the  same  correspondent  that  he  was 
to  have  been  married  in  July  to  "an  amiable 
young  lady,  but  was  taken  ill  with  fever  in 
June.  If  I  continue  thus  recruiting,  I  hope  to 
be  married  in  November." 


240        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

In  September  he  eulogises  the  object  of  his 
present  choice  to  a  friend  who  had  known  Miss 
Baker : 

"  A  greater  commendation  I  cannot  make  of 
the  young  lady  than  by  pronouncing  her  no 
ways  inferior  to  Louisa." 

To  the  aunt  of  this  friend  he  expatiates 
more  at  length  upon  the  "  united  power  of 
good  sense  and  beauty  "  as  exemplified  in  his 
jiancde,  Miss  Rachel  Cooke,  who  was  also  his 
blood  relative.  It  is  funny  to  our  notions — 
and  was  apparently  not  without  an  element  of 
the  humorous  to  the  bridegroom  expectant — 
that  he  should  send  the  "  measure  of  the  lady's 
stays"  to  his  foreign  correspondent,  "and  of 
her  skirts  and  robes."    . 

"  I  hope,"  he  pleads,  "  you  will  excuse  any 
impropriety  in  my  expressions,  for  I  confess 
an  utter  ignorance  of  these  matters." 

The  gown  for  which  measurements  were  en- 
closed, thus  ordered,  was  to  be  of  Brussels 
lace,  and  ornaments  to  match  were  to  accom- 
pany it.  This  piece  of  business  done  with, 
the  writer  is  free  to  indulge  in  pleasurable  an- 
ticipations or  pensive  reminiscences.  His  ma- 
tronly correspondent  was,  evidently,  cognisant 
of  the  (to  us)   mysterious  obstacles  that  had 


Doughoregan  Manor  241 

foiled  the  like  intentions  on  his  part  in  re 
Miss  Baker.  There  is  fruitful  matter  for  ro- 
mantic surmise  in  such  passages  as  these  : 

"  I  assure  you  I  have  been  more  sparing  in  my  reflec- 
tions, and  in  pronouncing  judgment  on  that  amiable 
part  of  mankind  (woman)  since  the  opinion  a.  charitable 
lady  of  your  acquaintance  was  pleased  to  form  of  me 
behind  my  back,  from  little  inadvertencies.  And  that 
opinion  was  delivered  seriously  and  deliberately  before 
a  sister  whom,  at  that  time,  I  would  have  given  the 
world  to  entertain  better  of  me." 

This  grows  interesting,  and  surmise  ripens 
into  partial  knowledge  as  we  read  on  in  the 
epistle  drawn  by  Miss  Rowland  from  the  do- 
mestic archives  of  the  Carroll  connection  : 

"  Well,  then,  since  the  subject  has  somehow,  unac- 
countably [!]  led  me  to  the  lady,  I  may  mention  her 
name.  How  is  Louisa  ?  There  was  once  more  music 
in  that  name  than  in  the  sweetest  lines  of  Pope  ;  but 
now  I  can  pronounce  it  as  indifferently  as  Nancy,  Bet- 
sey, or  any  other  common  name.  If  I  ask  a  few  ques- 
tions I  hope  you  will  not  think  I  am  not  as  indifferent 
as  I  pretend  to  be.  But  I  protest  it  is  mere  curiosity,  or 
mere  good-will  that  prompts  me  to  inquire  after  her.  Is 
she  still  single  ?  Does  she  intend  to  alter  her  state,  or 
to  remain  single  ?  If  she  thinks  of  matrimony  my  only 
wish  is  that  she  may  meet  with  a  man  deserving  of  her." 

Our  skeleton  romance  is  clothed  with  flesh 
16 


?42        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

and  instinct  with  life  when  we  have  finished 
this  remarkable  communication  from  the  man 
who  expected  shortly  to  become  the  husband 
of  another  than  the  unforgotten  Louisa.  It 
is  clear  that  a  whisperer  had  separated  the 
lovers,  and  almost  as  clear  that  the  mischief- 
maker  was  Louisas  sister.  As  obvious  as 
either  of  these  deductions  is  that  the  gentle- 
man  "  doth  protest  too  much  "  as  to  the  com- 
pleteness of  his  cure  and  the  reality  of  his 
indifference. 

The  shock  of  a  real  and  present  calamity 
awoke  him  from  reminiscent  reveries.  Rachel 
Cooke  fell  ill  of  fever  about  the  first  of  No- 
vember, and  died  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  that 
month. 

"  All  that  now  remains  of  my  unhappy  af- 
fection is  a  pleasing  melancholy  reflection  of 
having  loved  and  been  loved  by  a  most  de- 
serving woman,"  writes  Mr.  Carroll  to  his 
English  confidante,  three  months  subsequent 
to  her  decease.  In  a  morbid  vein,  natural 
and  excusable  in  the  circumstances,  he  de- 
clares that  he  has  come  to  the  dregs  of  his 
life,  and  ''wishes  the  bitter  potion  down."  His 
health  had  suffered  grievously  from  his  recent 
illness  and  the  sorrow  which  followed  so  closely 


Doughoregan  Manor  243 

upon  it.  He  had  had  "the  strongest  assur- 
ances of  happiness  in  the  married  state  from 
the  sweetness  of  Miss  Cooke's  temper,  her 
virtue  and  good  sense,  and  from  our  mutual 
affection." 

The  unworn  wedding-dress  was  laid  away 
reverently  by  the  women  of  the  household ; 
Rachel's  miniature  and  a  long  tress  of  her 
hair  were  locked  from  all  eyes  but  his  own  in 
a  secret  drawer  of  Charles  Carroll's  escritoire. 

The  heir  of  a  great  estate,  and  a  rising  man 
in  the  political  world,  could  not  be  surren- 
dered to  solitary  musings  upon  the  uncer- 
tainty of  human  happiness.  The  dregs  must 
be  emptied  from  the  cup  of  life  and  the  goodly 
vessel  refilled  with  generous  wine.  The  com- 
mission for  bridal  gear  sent  to  London  had 
included  a  memorandum  for  a  silk  gown  for 
Mary  Darnall,  "  a  young  lady  who  lives  with 
us."  The  lady  who  was  to  make  the  purchase, 
upon  the  receipt  of  a  letter  from  Mr.  Carroll, 
Sr.,  countermanding  the  order  for  what  was 
meant  for  Miss  Cooke,  omitted  to  buy  the 
silk  frock.  Charles  Carroll,  Jr.,  wrote  some- 
what tartly,  ten  months  after  poor  Rachel  died, 
of  "  my  cousin  Miss  Mollie  Darnall's "  cha- 
grin at  the  non-arrival  of  her  gown.     A  letter 


244        More  Colonial  Homesteaus 

to  another  British  friend  two  months  prior  to 
this,  shows  what  right  he  had  to  sympathise 
with  Miss  Mollie's  disappointment. 

His  third  betrothal  was  to  "a  sweet-tem- 
pered, charming,  neat  girl.  A  little  too  young 
for  me,  I  confess,  but  especially  as  I  am  of 
weak  and  puny  constitution,  in  a  poor  state 
of  health,  but  in  hopes  of  better." 

He  had  always  a  fine  sense  of  humour,  and 
a  sad  little  smile  must  have  stirred  his  lips  in 
adding,  "  Hope  springs  eternal  in  the  human 
breast." 

After  he  had  ordered  Miss  Darnall's  trous- 
seau through  his  London  factor,  and  recovered 
a  fair  degree  of  the  health  so  rudely  shaken  by 
the  events  of  the  past  eighteen  months,  Fate, 
unwearied  in  her  pursuit  of  him,  interposed 
yet  another  impediment  to  his  matrimonial 
ventures.  An  Act  of  Assembly  must  be  passed 
to  "  impower  Miss  Darnall,  who  is  under  age, 
to  consent  to  a  settlement  in  bar  of  dower." 
The  weight  of  the  Carroll  influence  was  ex- 
erted to  secure  this,  but  as  the  Assembly  did 
not  meet  until  the  early  spring  of  1768,  the 
marriage  must  be  put  off. 

We  cannot  read  the  last  of  the  letters  bear- 
ing upon  the  much-vexed  question  of  Charles 


Doughoregan  Manor  245 

CarrolFs  marriage  and  sober  settlement  in  life 
without  the  conviction  that  his  character  had 
gained  strength  and  depth  in  his  manifold  trib- 
ulations. After  the  frank  statement  that  the 
"  young  lady  to  whom  he  was  to  give  his  hand, 
and  who  already  had  his  heart,"  was  poor  in 
this  world's  goods,  he  goes  on  in  an  ingenu- 
ous, manly  tone  to  say  : 

"  I  prefer  her,  thus  unprovided,  to  all  the 
women  I  have  ever  seen,  even  to  Louisa,"  and 
cites  her  want  of  fortune  as  another  reason 
"  inducing  the  necessity  of  a  settlement,  and 
strongly  justifying  it.  I  am  willing  and  desir- 
ous that  all  my  future  actions  should  stand  the 
test'^of  those  two  severe  judges,  Reason  and 
Justice." 

From  this  willingness  he  never  departed. 
To  this  standard  he  remained  constant  to  the 
end  of  a  long,  prosperous,  and  beneficent 
life. 

The  Maryland  Gazette  of  June  9,  1768,  con- 
tained another  important  bit  of  society  in- 
telligence : 

"  On  Sunday  (June  5)  was  married  at  his 
Fathers  House  in  this  city,  Charles  Carroll 
Jr.,  Esq.,  to  Miss  Mary  Darnall,  an  agreeable 
young  Lady,  endowed  with  every  accomplish- 


246       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

ment  necessary  to  render  the  connubial  state 
happy." 

The  bridegroom  was  in  his  thirty-first  year, 
the  bride  in  her  twentieth. 

Pleasant  murmurs  of  the  tranquil,  yet  busy, 
life  led  by  the  pair  steal  to  us  through  the  cor- 
ridors leading  to  the  memorable  Past  which 
latter-day  research  has  cleared  out  for  us. 
Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton  was  the  business 
acquaintance,  then,  the  friend  and  host  of 
Washington.  He  was  the  munificent  patron 
of  Charles  Wilson  Peale  and  other  artists. 
He  and  his  popular  wife  kept  open  house  for 
townsmen  and  visitors  from  other  colonies 
and  from  over  the  sea.  Annapolis  was  their 
home  in  winter ;  Doughoregan  Manor,  in 
summer. 

Then  the  famous  letters,  signed  "  First  Cit- 
izen," maintaining  the  to-be-immortal  principle 
that  taxation  without  representation  is  a  pri- 
vate and  a  public  outrage,  "  brought  the  mod- 
est, studious,  and  retiring  planter  out  of  the 
shades  of  private  life  into  the  full  glare  of 
political  publicity."1 

Henceforward,  the  lime-light  that  is  ever 
turned  upon  the  reformer  beat  steadily  upon 

1  Miss  Rowland. 


Doughoregan  Manor  249 

him.  When  the  Boston  Tea  Party  of  1773 
was  outdone  by  the  burning  of  the  Peggy 
Stewart  that  had  brought  into  the  port  of 
Annapolis  a  cargo  of  "  the  detestabl-e  article," 
Charles  Carroll,  Jr.,  was  the  chief  counsellor 
of  the  owner  who,  with  his  own  hand,  applied 
the  expiatory  torch. 

Mr.  Carroll  was  a  member  of  the  Conti- 
nental Congress  convened  in  Philadelphia  in 
September,  1774. 

"A  very  sensible  gentleman,"  says  John 
Adams.  "  A  Roman  Catholic,  and  of  the 
first  fortune  in  America.  His  income  is  ten 
thousand  pounds  a  year  now ;  will  be  fourteen 
in  two  or  three  years,  they  say.  Besides,  his 
father  has  a  vast  fortune  which  will  be  his." 

From  the  same  hand  we  have  this  testi- 
mony to  the  very  sensible  gentleman's  worth 
in   1776  : 

"  Of  great  abilities  and  learning,  complete 
master  of  the  French  language,  and  a  pro- 
fessor of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  ;  yet  a 
warm,  a  firm,  a  zealous  supporter  of  the  rights 
of  America,  in  whose  cause  he  has  hazarded 
his  all." 

On  June  11,  1776,  "Mr.  Chase  and  Mr. 
Carroll    of    Carrollton,    two    of  the    Commis- 


250        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

sioners,  being  arrived  from  Canada,  attended 
and  gave  account  of  their  proceeding  and  the 
state  of  the  Army  in  that  country." 

On  August  2d,  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, which  had  been  passed  on  the  Fourth  of 
July,  was  spread  upon  the  desk  of  the  Secretary 
of  Congress  for  the  signature  of  members. 

"  Will  you  sign  it  ?  "  asked  the  President  of 
Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  who  was  talking 
with  him  upon  other  subjects. 

"  Most  willingly,"  answered  the  Marylander, 
with  hearty  emphasis,  taking  up  the  pen. 

"  There  go  a  few  millions  ! "  remarked  a  by- 
stander, and  a  rustle  of  applause  ran  through  the 
group  about  the  desk  and  President's  chair. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add,  in  this  myth- 
destroying  generation,  that  "  Charles  Carroll 
of  Carrollton  "  was  the  ordinary  signature  ap- 
pended to  his  letters  and  business  documents, 
adopted  and  used  to  distinguish  him  from  his 
father  of  Annapolis. 

The  numerous  and  important  services  ren- 
dered by  this  one  of  "  The  Signers  "  to  his 
country,  the  offices  to  which  he  was  called  and 
his  manner  of  filling  them,  are  events  in  our 
early  history.  The  student  of  this  who  would 
learn  of  these  things  in  detail  could  not  act 


Doughoregan  Manor  251 

more  wisely  than  by  reading  the  volumes  to 
which  I  have  already  and  repeatedly  directed 
his  attention  :  Miss  Kate  Mason  Rowland's 
Life  of  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrolllon,  1737- 
1832,  with  His  Correspondeitee  and  .Public 
Papers. 

From  the  Centennial  Memorial,  published 
in  1876  by  the  Maryland  Historical  Society, 
I  extract  a  modest  summary  of  Mr.  Carroll's 
public  life  prepared  by  himself  in  his  eightieth 
year : 

"  On  the  breaking  out  of  the  Revolution,  I  took  a  de- 
cided part  in  the  support  of  the  rights  of  this  country  ; 
was  elected  a  member  of  the  Committee  of  Safety  estab- 
lished by  the  Legislature  ;  was  a  member  of  the  Con- 
vention which  formed  the  Constitution  of  this  State. 
The  journals  of  Congress  show  how  long  I  was  a  mem- 
ber of  that  body  during  the  Revolution.  With  Dr. 
Franklin  and  Mr.  Samuel  Chase  I  was  appointed  a 
Commissioner  to  Canada.  I  was  elected  a  member  of 
the  Senate  at  the  first  session  of  Congress  under  the  pre- 
sent Confederation.  .  .  .  The  mode  of  choosing  the 
Senate  was  suggested  by  me.     . 

"  Though  well  acquainted  with  General  Washington, 
and  I  flatter  myself,  in  his  confidence,  few  letters  passed 
between  us.  One,  having  reference  to  the  opposition 
made  to  the  treaty  concluded  by  Mr.  Jay,  has  been 
repeatedly  published  in  the  newspapers,  and  perhaps 
you  may  have  seen  it." 


IX 


DOUGHOREGAN    MANOR:    THE  CARROLL 
HOMESTEAD,  MARYLAND 

(Concluded) 

UPON  the  morning  of  May  30th,  Mr. 
Charles  Carroll  of  Annapolis,  a  hale  pa- 
triarch of  eighty,  was  standing  upon  the  portico 
of  his  town  house,  watching  an  incoming  ves- 
sel in  the  harbour  below.  Spy-glass  at  his 
eye,  he  followed  her  every  movement  until 
she  dropped  anchor  at  the  pier.  Then,  turn- 
ing to  speak  to  his  daughter-in-law,  who  stood 
beside  him,  he  made  a  backward  step,  slipped 
over  the  edge  of  the  portico,  and  fell  head- 
long to  the  ground.  He  was  killed  instantly. 
Mrs.  Carroll's  mother,  Mrs.  Darnall,  had 
died  a  year  before,  since  which  event  her 
daughter  had  been  peculiarly  dependent  upon 
her  father-in-law's  affection  and  companion- 
ship.    As  we  have  seen,  she  was  brought  up 

252 


Doughoregan  Manor  253 

in  his  house.  Her  cousin  fiancd  spoke  of  her 
in  his  letters  as  "  a  young  lady  who  lives  with 
us."  Mr.  Carroll,  Sr.,  had  never  had  a  daugh- 
ter of  his  own,  and  treated  his  son's  wife  as 
if  she  were  his  child  instead  of  his  wife's  niece. 
Mrs.  Darnall  had  ministered  most  tenderly 
to  the  elder  Mrs.  Carroll  in  her  last  lingering 
illness  of  more  than  two  years'  duration,  and 
then  taken  her  place  as  manager  of  the  An- 
napolis and  Doughoregan  Manor  households. 
The  daughter  had  never  recovered  her  spirits 
since  her  mother's  decease,  and  her  health  had 
suffered  from  her  melancholy.  The  terrible 
accident,  of  which  she  was  a  witness,  pros- 
trated her  utterly.  She  was  too  ill  to  accom- 
pany the  remains  to  their  resting-place  under 
the  floor  of  the  Doughoregan  chapel,  and 
never  left  her  chamber  alive  after  that  fatal 
day.  In  just  eleven  days  from  the  date  of 
her  father-in-law's  death  she  breathed  her  last, 
"  after  a  short,  but  painful  illness." 

Her  youngest  child  was  two  years  old  when 
left  motherless,  and  outlived  her  but  three 
years.  Three  other  daughters  had  died  in 
early  infancy.  Mary,  born  in  1770,  Charles, 
born  in  1775,  and  Catherine,  born  in  1778, 
grew  up  to  man's  and  woman's  estate. 


254        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Charles,  the  only  son  among  the  seven  child- 
ren given  to  his  parents,  was  five  years  of 
age  at  the  time  of  his  mother's  death.  In  an- 
other five  years  he  was  sent  to  France  to  be 
educated  by  the  Jesuit  fathers  in  the  English 
college  at  Liege.  He  sailed  from  Annapolis 
in  true  princely  state,  commemorated  by  an 
old  picture  yet  extant.  His  guardian  and  fel- 
low-voyager was  Daniel  Carroll,  of  the  Dud- 
dington  estate,  whose  younger  brother  was  a 
student  at  Liege. 

This  cousin  Daniel  stood  high  in  the  regards 
of  his  kinsman  of  Carrollton,  as  is  manifest 
from  their  correspondence.  The  elder  relat- 
ive defrayed  the  other's  expenses  from  Amer- 
ica to  Liege,  and  wrote  kindly,  yet  decided, 
counsel  respecting  the  young  traveller's  con- 
duct abroad.  He  was  advised  to  improve  his 
time  by  acquiring  some  knowledge  of  the 
French  language,  but  not  to  make  that  time 
so  long  as  to  draw  heavily  upon  an  estate 
which  was  "  not  very  productive."  He  was 
to  polish  his  manners  by  intercourse  with  the 
most  polite  nation  upon  earth,  "  observe  the 
cultivation  of  the  country,  particularly  of  the 
vineyards,  learn  the  most  improved  methods 
cf  making  wines,  inquire  their  prices  from  the 


Doughoregan  Manor  255 

manufacturers  themselves,  and   endeavour  to 
fix  some  useful  correspondences  in  France." 

Mary  Carroll,  now  a  beautiful  girl  of  six- 
teen, joined  her  father  and  her  aunt,  Miss 
Darnall,  in  "sincere  wishes  for  the  health  and 
happiness"  of  the  absentee.  In  ten  months 
more  her  father  undertook,  with  obvious  re- 
luctance, to  communicate  "  intelligence "  he 
foresaw  would  be  unwelcome  : 

"  Although  disagreeable,  I  must  impart  it  to  you.  My 
daughter,  I  am  sorry  to  inform  you,  is  much  attached  to, 
and  has  engaged  herself  to  a  young  English  gentleman  of 
the  name  of  Caton.  I  do  sincerely  wish  she  had  placed 
her  affections  elsewhere,  but  I  do  not  think  myself  at  lib- 
erty to  control  her  choice  when  fixed  on  a  person  of  un- 
exceptional character,  nor  would  you,  I  am  sure,  desire 
that  I  should.     .     .     . 

1  Time  will  wear  away  the  impressions  which  an  early 
attachment  may  have  made  on  your  heart,"  proceeds  the 
philosophical  kinsman,  "  Louisa's  "  whilom  lover,  "and 
I  hope  you  will  find  out,  in  the  course  of  a  year  or  two, 
some  agreeable,  virtuous,  and  sweet-tempered  young 
lady,  whose  reciprocal  affection,  tenderness,  and  good- 
ness of  disposition  will  make  you  happy,  and  forget  the 
loss  of  my  daughter." 

This  "  intelligence "  disposed  of  early  in 
the  epistle,  the  thrice-betrothed  and  once- 
wedded  mentor  passes  easily  on  to  discussion 


256        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

of  business,  family,  and  political  affairs,  send- 
ing, en  passant,  "  Molly's  kindly  compliments," 
and  mentioning,  jocosely,  that  Kitty,  "who 
will  make  a  fine  woman,"  sometimes  talks  of 
44  Cousin  Long-legs."  A  comprehensive  para- 
graph tops  off  the  model  missive  : 

"  I  have  mentioned  every  occurrence  worth  communi- 
cating, and  therefore  conclude  this  letter  with  assurances 
of  real  regard  and  attachment." 

We  get  a  chance  glint  of  light  upon  the  fig- 
ure and  character  of  "  Molly  "  Carroll's  Eng- 
lish spouse  in  a  sarcastic  sketch  from  the  pen 
of  William  Maclay,  a  Pennsylvania  Congress- 
man. John  Adams,  then  Vice-President,  is 
interrogating  Mr.  Carroll  upon  the  latter's  per- 
sonal concerns  in  a  style  that  impresses  us,  as  it 
struck  the  diarist,  as  flippant  and  impertinent : 

"  '  Have  you  arranged  your  empire  on  your  departure  ? 
Your  revenues  must  suffer  in  your  absence.  What  kind 
of  administration  have  you  established  for  the  regula- 
tion of  your  finances  ?  Is  your  government  intrusted 
to  a  viceroy,  nuncio,  legate,  plenipotentiary,  or  charge 
(V  affaires  V 

"  Carroll  endeavored  to  get  him  down  from  his  im- 
perial language  by  telling  him  that  he  had  a  son-in-law 
who  paid  attention  to  his  affairs  :  I  left  them  before 
Adams  had  half  settled  the  empire." 


Doughoregan  Manor  257 

The  satirist  is  gravely  respectful  in  speaking 
of  Mr.  Carroll's  pleasure  on  reading  of  the 
abolition  of  titles  and  distinctions  of  the  nobil- 
ity in  France.  u  A  flash  of  joy  lightened  from 
the  countenance  "  of  the  richest  man  in  Mary- 
land, two  of  whose  granddaughters  were  to 
marry  into  the  British  nobility,  and  two  other 
descendants  in  the  third  generation  were  to 
espouse  titled  Frenchmen  of  high  rank.  He 
is  emphatic  in  the  expression  of  Republican 
and  Federal  sentiments  in  a  letter  to  Alex- 
ander Hamilton,  written  October  22,  1792  : 

"  I  hope  the  real  friends  of  liberty  and  their  country 
will  unite  to  counteract  the  schemes  of  men  who  have 
uniformly  manifested  hostile  temper  to  the  present  gov- 
ernment, the  adoption  of  which  has  rescued  these  States 
from  that  debility  and  confusion,  and  those  horrors, 
which  unhappy  France  has  experienced  of  late,  and  may 
still  labour  under." 

At  eleven  years  of  age,  the  little  Kitty  who 
made  fun  of  Daniel  Carroll's  long  legs  was 
sent  to  an  English  convent  in  Liege.  She  ful- 
filled her  father's  prediction  of  growing  up  into 
a  fine  woman,  playing  the  role  of  leading  belle 
in  Annapolis,  Philadelphia,  and  New  York  so- 
ciety for  several  seasons  before  her  marriage, 
at  twenty-three,  to  Robert  Goodloe  Harper,  an 


258         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

eminent  lawyer,  and  member  of  Congress  from 
South  Carolina.  This  gentleman,  a  Virginian 
by  birth,  removed  from  South  Carolina  to 
Maryland  after  his  marriage,  and  became  one 
of  Mr.  Carroll's  most  trusted  friends.  While 
the  devoted  patriot  retired  nominally  from 
public  life  in  1800,  announcing  his  intention 
of  devoting  the  rest  of  his  life  to  the  care 
of  his  estates  and  enjoyment  of  home  and 
children,  his  letters  to  Mr.  Harper  and  others 
show  how  watchful  was  the  outlook  kept  up 
at  Doughoregan  Manor  upon  the  tossing  sea 
of  politics,  how  wise  his  judgment  in  "the 
momentous  questions  dividing  the  minds  of 
statemen. 

The  marriage  of  his  only  son  Charles  (IV.) 
Carroll,  Jr.,  July  17,  1800,  was  a  source  of 
profound  gratification  to  the  father.  The 
bridegroom  was  the  Admirable  Crichton  of 
the  brilliant  circle  which  was  his  social  orbit. 

The  late  Jonathan  Meredith,  a  distinguished 
Maryland  lawyer,  who  died  a  few  years  ago  at 
the  advanced  age  of  ninety,  used  to  tell  of  a 
trial  of  athletic  skill  between  some  fashion- 
able young  men  of  Baltimore  which  he  wit- 
nessed. A  fencing-match  was  on  the  floor 
when  he  entered  the  room  devoted  to  the  ex- 


259 


CHARLES  CARROLL  OF       HOMEWOOD." 

FRON'  ORIGINAL  PAINTING  BY  REMBRANDT  PEALE. 


Doughoregan  Manor  261 

hibition,  and  his  attention  was  at  once  captiv- 
ated by  the  extreme  beauty  and  grace  of  one 
of  the  contestants,  who,  he  was  told,  was  the 
son  of  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton. 

"  Nothing  in  Grecian  art  surpasses  the  per- 
fect symmetry  of  his  figure,"  he  would  say. 
"  In  every  movement  he  was  a  study  for  a 
sculptor.  His  face  had  not  a  flaw.  I  have 
always  carried  the  image  of  him  in  my  mind 
as  a  faultless  model  of  manly  beauty." 

The  picture  of  the  athlete  in  the  drawing- 
room  of  Doughoregan  Manor  sustains  the  en- 
comium. The  head  is  fine  in  shape  and  poise  ; 
the  low,  smooth  forehead,  the  clear  blue  eye,' 
the  perfect  oval  of  the  face,  the  straight  nose 
and  delicate  curves  of  the  mouth,  beguile  and 
feast  the  eye.1  After  wandering  through  the 
other  rooms  and  listening  to  stories  of  other 
portraits,  all  full  of  interest,  we  are  drawn  back 

1  An  inscription  upon  the  back  of  the  canvas  (overlooked  by  the 
family  for  two  generations),  is  to  this  effect  : 
,     4<  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton  Junior  Esq. 

"This  is  his  likeness  which  he  gave  to  Mary  Wallace,  and  which  she 
received  on  Monday  January  22d,  i799.  Drawn  by  Mr.  Rembrandt 
Peale  when  Mr.  Carroll  7oas  22  rears  of  age,  and  Mary  Wallace 
gives  this  to  her  Daughter,  Mary  Wallace  Ranhen,  at  her  decease." 

Beyond  the  mention  of  the  names  of  mother  and  daughter  in  the 
faded  inscription  discovered  just  one  hundred  years  after  the  gift  of 
the  portrait  to  "  Mary  Wallace,"  nothing  is  known  of  either. 


262        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

to  this  by  a  growing  fascination  enhanced  by 
the  tale  of  his  life  and  its  untimely  end. 

He  was  just  twenty-five  when  he  married 
Harriet  Chew,  a  younger  sister  of  the  "  Pretty 
Peggy,"  whose  acquaintance  we  have  made 
and  improved  in  our  chapter  upon  ''Clive- 
den." {Some  Colonial  Homesteads,  pp.  117- 
122.)  There  were  six  of  the  Chew  sisters, 
Margaret  ("Peggy")  being  the  third  of  the 
bevy  of  beauties.  The  star  of  Harriet,  the 
fourth  sister,  was  in  the  zenith  in  1796,  when 
Washington  begged  her  to  remain  in  the  room 
during  his  sittings  to  Gilbert  Stuart,  that  his 
countenance  should,  under  the  charm  of  her 
conversation,  "  wear  its  most  agreeable  ex- 
pression." 

Colonel  John  Eager  Howard,  who  had  mar- 
ried Peggy  Chew  in  1787,  was  a  political  ally 
and  warm  personal  friend  of  Charles  Carroll 
of  Carrollton.  It  is  quite  possible,  and  alto- 
gether congruous  with  the  rest  of  the  story, 
that  the  younger  Carroll  may  have  been 
thrown  into  familiar  association  with  Harriet 
Chew  during  her  visits  to  her  sister,  who  was 
reckoned  the  most  beautiful  woman  of  her 
generation  and  country.  Whispers  of  a  former 
passion,  or  fancy,  for  Nelly  Custis,  of  Mount 


Doughoregan  Manor  263 

Vernon,  the  step-granddaughter  of  the  Pre- 
sident, did  not  prevail  with  sensible  Harriet 
against  the  wooing  of  the  Admirable  Crich- 
ton.  Nor  did  family  history  repeat  itself  in 
the  form  of  delaying  illnesses,  frustrating 
deaths,  and  tardy  settlements. 

A  lawyer  friend  and  relative,  Mr.  William 
Cooke,  asked  and  received  thirty  gallons  of 
choice  old  Madeira  for  drawing  up  the  joint- 
ure papers ;  the  wedding-garments  were  worn 
by  the  bride  for  whom  they  were  ordered  ;  the 
marriage  took  place  at  the  appointed  time,  and 
the  happy  pair  were  installed  at  "  Homewood," 
near  Baltimore.  The  brick  mansion  built  for 
them  by  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton  is  still 
standing. 

The  neighbourhood  was  all  they  could  have 
wished,  and  both  were  hospitable,  fond  of 
amusement,  and  accustomed  to  the  cream  of  cis- 
atlantic society.  Mrs.  Caton  was  bringing  up 
her  three  daughters,  afterwards  celebrated  as 
"  the  American  Graces,"  at  "  Brooklandwood," 
near  enough  for  the  daily  exchange  of  calls. 
M  Hampton,"  the  Ridgely  House,  built  in  1783, 
than  which  there  were  few  handsomer  in  the 
State,  was  but  a  few  miles  farther  away  ;  "  The 
Homestead,"   the  country-seat  of  the    Patter- 


264         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

sons,  where  "  Betsey  "  Patterson  and  Jerome 
Bonaparte  spent  the  one  and  only  year  of  their 
married  life ;  "  Belvedere,"  the  residence  of 
Colonel  Howard  and  his  "  pretty  Peggy," 
were  within  easy  visiting  distance.  The  elder 
Carroll's  many  letters  to  "  Homewood  "  are 
affectionate,  and  expressive  of  the  thorough 
sympathy  existing  between  them  upon  every 
subject  discussed  by  the  two.  The  correspond- 
ence is  entertaining  reading  apart  from  the 
insight  we  thus  gain  into  the  prosperous,  sunny 
existence  led  in  the  two  homes.  Both  of  the 
Carrolls  disliked  and  distrusted  John  Adams. 
"  Neither  Jefferson  nor  Burr  can  make  so  bad 
a  president,"  is  the  opinion  of  the  Sage  of  Car- 
rollton.     Yet  of  Jefferson  he  concludes  : 

"  If  he  does  not  think  as  he  writes,  he  is  a 
hypocrite,  and  his  pitiful  cant  is  the  step-ladder 
to  his  ambition.  Burr,  I  suspect,  is  not  less  a 
hypocrite  than  Jefferson;  but  he  is  a  firm, 
steady  man,  and  possessed,  it  is  said,  of  great 
energy  and  decision." 

A  year  after  the  marriage  a  letter  from  the 
Manor-house  of  "  Homewood"  has  to  do  with 
what  put  presidential  candidates  and  interna- 
tional complications  clean  out  of  sight  and 
thought.     A  fifth  Charles  Carroll  had  seen  the 


Doughoregan  Manor  265 

light  of  the  world  that  had  dealt  so  generously 
with  his  forbears. 

"May  this  child,  when  grown  to  manhood, 
be  a  comfort  to  his  parents  in  the  decline  of 
life,  and  support  the  reputation  of  his  family  ! " 
is  the  prayer  of  the  happy  grandfather. 

The  date  of  the  congratulatory  note  is  July 
26,  1801. 

In  the  same  spirit  of  unaffected  piety,  but  in 
a  far  different  tone,  he  writes,  August  12,  1806  : 

"  Immediately  upon  the  receipt  of  your  letter  I  gave 
orders  to  Harry  to  take  up  some  of  the  pavement  of  the 
Chapel  to  have  the  grave  dug  for  the  earthly  remains  of 
your  poor  little  infant.  To  soften  the  loss  of  this  dear 
and  engaging  child,  the  certainty  of  his  now  enjoying  a 
glorious  immortality  will  greatly  contribute  " 

At  seventy,  Charles  Carroll,  Senior,  writes 
to  his  junior  of  a  plan  to  visit  Carrollton,  and 
a  desire  to  have  his  son's  company  on  the  trip, 
adding,  jocosely,  "  I  have  but  two  complaints, 
old  age  and  the  cholic." 

He  is  hale  and  hopeful  at  seventy-four,  with 
the  Harper  grandchildren  playing  about  his 
knees,  the  two  elder  at  school  in  Baltimore,  so 
near  as  "  to  allow  them  to  visit  the  Manor  every 
Saturday,  and  return  to  town  the  Mondays 
following." 


266        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

A  graver  despatch  went  from  Annapolis 
May  8,  1813  : 

"  I  have  sent  my  valuable  papers,  books  of  account, 
and  plate  to  the  Manor,  and  baggage  of  different  kinds 
will  be  sent  to-morrow.  When  I  go  to  the  Manor  your 
sister  Caton  and  her  daughters  Betsey  and  Emily  will 
accompany  me.  I  shall  remove  some  pipes  of  wine  to 
my  farm  near  this  city,  and  some  household  furniture, 
for  I  seriously  apprehend  the  enemy  will  destroy  the 
town.  It  is  reported  a  strong  force  is  going  up  the  Po- 
tomac, and  they  are  greatly  alarmed  at  Washington." 

August  25,  1 8 14,  the  situation  is  yet  more 
alarming  : 

"  The  enemy  are  in  possession  of  Washington  !  It  is 
reported  that  they  have  destroyed  the  public  buildings 
and  the  Navy  Yard.  It  is  thought  they  will  next  at- 
tack Baltimore.  The  fire  at  Washington  was  plainly 
seen  by  several  of  my  people  about  ten  o'clock  last 
night." 

"  If  I  live  to  see  the  end  of  the  war,  I  shall," 
etc.,  etc.,  is  the  beginning  of  another  epistle. 
He  uses  the  same  formula  in  effect  when  the 
war  was  over,  and  the  return  of  peace  per- 
mitted the  resumption  of  the  traditional  cus- 
tom of  sending  the  children  of  the  Carroll 
connection  across  the  ocean  for  education.  His 
granddaughter,    Mary    Harper,    was    sent    to 


Doughoregan  Manor  267 

France,  "  where  she  will  be  more  piously  edu- 
cated than  at  the  very  best  boarding-school  in 
Philadelphia. 

"  I  may  not  live  to  see  her  return.  Kiss  her 
for  me.      I  send  her  my  love  and  my  blessing." 

He  lived  to  receive  the  news  that  "  the  dear 
girl  "  had  died  abroad,  and  to  mingle  his  tears 
with  her  parents'.  Another  Mary,  Mrs.  Ca- 
ton's  eldest  daughter,  had  married  a  brother 
of  Elizabeth  Patterson  Bonaparte.  In  181 7, 
Louisa  Caton  married  Colonel  Sir  Felton 
Bathurst  Hervey,  who  had  been  on  Welling- 
ton's staff  at  Waterloo.  In  18 18,  Mrs.  Har- 
per writes  to  her  father  from  England  of 
personal  interviews  and  distinguished  atten- 
tion she  has  had  from  the  Duke  and  other 
great  ones  of  the  earth,  and  Mr.  Carroll  makes 
inquiry  as  to  a  French  school  to  which  he 
intends  to  send  his  grandson,  Charles  Carroll. 

In  1820,  Mrs.  Caton  brought  to  Doughore- 
gan Manor,  the  widow  of  Commodore  Deca- 
tur, two  months  after  his  fatal  duel  with  Barron. 
"  The  exercise  and  change  of  air  have  greatly 
benefited  Mrs.  Decatur,"  the  host  reports  to 
his  son.  "  Her  spirits  are  more  composed  ; 
she  dines  with  us,  and  converses  more." 

In   that   same  summer  a  travelled   English- 


268        More  Colonial  Homesteads 


man  describes  a  visit  to  Doughoregan  Manor 
and  the  cordial  hospitality  of  the  proprietor, 

"  a  venerable  patriarch,  nearly  eighty-three  years  of  age, 
and  one  of  the  four  survivors  of  those  who  signed  the 
Declaration  of  Independence. 

"Although  still  an  expert  horseman,  he  seldom  goes 
beyond  the  limits  of  his  Manor.  I  had,  however,  seen 
him  riding  in  a  long  procession,  through  the  streets  of 
Baltimore,  holding  in  his  hand  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, which  he  delivered  to  the  orator  of  the  day, 
at  the  monument  of  General  Washington." 

Three  surviv- 
i  n  g  signers, 
James  Madison, 
Thomas  Jeffer- 
son, and  Charles 
Carroll  of  Car- 
rollton,  were  in- 
vited to  meet 
Lafayette  at 
York  town  on 
October  19, 
1824,  to  cele- 
brate the  surren- 
der of  Cornwal- 
lis.  An  auto- 
graph   letter    from    Mr.    Carroll    to    the    late 


CHARLES  CARROLL  OF  CARROLLTON. 

1737-1832. 


Doughoregan  Manor  269 

Robert  G.  Scott,  of  Richmond,  Virginia, 
pleads  his  " advanced  age"  in  apology  for  his 
declination  of  the  invitation.  He  met  La- 
fayette at  Fort  Mc Henry,  October  7th,  on 
his  way  to  Yorktown,  and,  with  Colonel  John 
Eager  Howard  and  "several  other  veterans," 
lunched  with  them  in  a  tent  that  had  been 
used  by  Washington  in  the  Revolutionary 
War.  Mr.  Carroll  was  also  a  guest  at  the 
ball  given  at  "  Belvedere  "  to  the  French 
marquis. 

One  of  the  most  tender  and  confidential 
letters  penned  by  the  patriarch  to  his  son, 
bears  date  of  April  12,  182 1.  It  contains 
these  solemn  admonitions  : 

"  I  deem  it  my  duty  to  call  your  attention  to  the  short- 
ness of  this  life,  and  the  certainty  of  death,  and  the 
dreadful  judgment  we  must  all  undergo,  and  on  the  de- 
cision of  which  a  happy  or  a  miserable  Eternity  depends. 
.  .  .  My  desire  to  induce  you  to  reflect  on  futurity, 
and,  by  a  virtuous  life,  to  merit  heaven,  has  suggested 
the  above  reflections  and  warnings.  The  approaching 
festival  of  Easter  and  the  merits  and  mercies  of  Our 
Redeemer,  copiosa  assudeum  redemptio,  have  led  me  into 
this  chain  of  meditation  and  reasoning,  and  have  in- 
spired me  with  the  hope  of  finding  mercy  before  my 
Judge,  and  of  being  happy  in  the  life  to  come,  a  happi- 
ness I  wish  you  to  participate  with  me  by  infusing  into 
your  heart  a  similar  hope." 


270       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

I  n  a  letter  of  later  date  he  says, ' '  God  bless  and 
prepare  you  for  a  better  world,  for  the  present 
is  but  a  passing  meteor  compared  to  Eternity." 

And  still  again  :  "  At  the  hour  of  your 
death,  ah  !  my  son,  you  will  feel  the  emptiness 
of  all  sublunary  things ;  and  that  hour  may  be 
much  nearer  than  you  expect.  Think  well  on 
it !     I  mean  your  eternal  welfare." 

Other  circumstances  besides  his  own  ex- 
treme age  moved  him  to  such  meditations. 
He  stood  so  nearly  solitary  in  the  world  once 
peopled  with  his  contemporaries  that  each 
death  among  the  remaining  few  was  like  the 
stroke  of  his  own  passing-bell.  Colonel  John 
Eager  Howard  had  buried  his  beautiful  wife 
in  1822.  Mr.  Carroll's  best-beloved  son-in- 
law,  General  Robert  Goodloe  Harper,  died 
January  15,  1825.  The  heaviest  stroke  that 
could  fall  upon  the  old  man  and  the  old 
house  descended  April  3,  1825,  in  the  death  of 
Charles  (IV.)  Carroll  of  "  Homewood."  The 
knowledge  of  what  his  life  had  meant  to  him 
who  was  only  son,  chief  pride,  and  dearest 
hope  lends  awful  dignity  to  words  written  in 
November  of  that  direful  year : 

"  On  the  20th  of  this  month  I  entered  into  my  eighty- 
ninth  year.     This,  in  any   country,  would  be  deemed  a 


Doughoregan  Manor  271 

long  life.  If  it  has  not  been  directed  to  the  only  end 
for  which  man  was  created,  it  is  a  mere  nothing,  an 
empty  phantom,  an  indivisible  point,  compared  with  Eter- 
nity. .  .  .  On  the  mercy  of  my  Redeemer  I  rely  for 
salvation,  and  on  His  merits  ;  not  on  the  works  I  have 
done  in  obedience  to  His  precepts,  for  even  these,  I  fear, 
a  mixture  of  alloy  will  render  unavailing  and  cause  to  be 
rejected." 

Mr.  Carroll  took  part  in  a  public  pageant 
on  July  20,  1826,  when  memorial  services  were 
held  in  Baltimore  in  honour  of  Ex-Presidents 
Adams  and  Jefferson.  The  whole  nation  was 
thrilled  to  the  heart  by  the  coincidence  of  the 
deaths  of  both  these  men  on  the  Fourth  of  July 
of  that  year,  an  event  which  left  but  one  sur- 
viving signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence. Upon  the  eve  of  the  solemn  celebration, 
this  man,  in  the  awful  solitariness  of  extreme 
old  age,  sitting  in  the  shadow  of  the  double 
decease,  indited  these  manly  and  magnanimous 
words  to  a  friend  : 

11  'Though  I  disapproved  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  adminis- 
tration and  was  dissatisfied  with  a  part  of  Mr.  Adams's, 
both  unquestionably  greatly  contributed  to  the  Inde- 
pendence of  this  country.  Their  services  should  be 
remembered,  and  their  errors  forgiven  and  forgotten. 
This  evening,  I  am  going  to  Baltimore  to  attend  to- 
morrow the  procession  and  ceremonies  to  be  paid  to  the 
memories  of  these  praised  and  dispraised  Presidents." 


272         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

He  acted  as  chief  mourner  in  the  funeral 
procession,  and  in  the  same  carriage  was  the 
friend  of  more  than  half  a  century,  John  Eager 
Howard.  In  September  of  that  year,  Mr.  Car- 
roll had  a  medal  struck  to  commemorate  his 
ninetieth  birthday,  and  received  the  congratu- 
lations of  friends  and  neighbours  at  the 
Manor.  From  the  pen  of  one  who  saw  him 
then  we  have  a  picture  of  the  eminent  nona- 
genarian : 

"  He  was  a  rather  small  and  thin  person,  of  very  gra- 
cious and  polished  manners.  At  the  age  of  ninety  he 
was  still  upright,  and  could  see  and  hear  as  well  as 
men  commonly  do.  He  had  a  smiling  expression  when 
he  spoke,  and  had  none  of  the  reserve  which  usually 
attends  old  age." 

His  lively  interest  in  what  was  going  on  in 
his  widening  family  connexion  and  in  the 
world  of  nations  remained  unabated  to  the 
last.  His  widowed  granddaughter,  Mrs.  Rob- 
ert Patterson,  one  of  the  fairest  and  most  ac- 
complished of  American-born  women,  was  now 
Marchioness  of  Wellesley,  her  second  husband 
being  a  brother  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 
Mrs.  Hervey,  also,  was  married  again,  and  to 
a  British  peer,  the  Duke  of  Leeds.  A  favour- 
ite grandchild,  Mrs,  McTavish  (Emily  Caton), 


Doughoregan  Manor  273 

spent  much  of  her  time  at  the  Manor,  where 
her  children  were  joyously  at  home,  and  a 
never-ceasing  delight  to  their  great-grand- 
father. 

Never  was  old  age  more  painless  and  placid. 

August  2,  1826,  Mr.  Carroll  signed,  with  a 
hand  that  scarcely  trembled,  this  testimonial 
upon  a  copy  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, now  in  the  New  York  City  Library  : 

"  Grateful  to  Almighty  God  for  the  blessing  which, 
through  Jesus  Christ  Our  Lord,  He  has  conferred  upon 
my  beloved  country  in  her  emancipation,  and  upon  my- 
self in  permitting  me  under  circumstances  of  mercy  to 
live  to  the  age  of  eighty-nine  years,  and  to  survive  the 
fiftieth  year  of  American  Independence,  and  certifying 
by  my  present  signature  my  approbation  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  adopted  by  Congress  on  the  fourth 
day  of  July,  in  the  year  of  Our  Lord,  one  thousand  seven 
hundred  and  seventy-six,  which  I  originally  subscribed 
on  the  second  day  of  August  of  the  same  year,  and  of 
which  I  am,  now,  the  last  surviving  signer,  I  do  hereby 
recommend  to  the  present  and  future  generations  the 
principles  of  that  important  document  as  the  best  earthly 
inheritance  their  ancestors  could  bequeath  to  them,  and 
pray  that  the  civil  and  religious  liberties  they  have  se- 
cured to  my  country  may  be  perpetuated  to  the  remotest 
posterity  and  extended  to  the  whole  family  of  man." 

On  July  11,  1830,  the  faithful  son  of  his 
Church  laid  the  corner-stone  of  the  now  splen- 


274       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

did  St.  Charles  College,  about  two  miles  from 
Doughoregan  Manor.  He  had  given  the  land 
upon  which  the  college  was  to  be  built,  and  a 
handsome  sum  toward  the  erection  of  the  same. 

And  so  one,  and  yet  another  year  glided  in 
and  out,  like  the  waves  of  a  summer  brook  rip- 
pling between  green  pastures.  The  golden- 
hearted  old  man  retired  early,  and  was  abroad 
betimes  on  the  morrow.  He  believed  and 
practised  his  belief  in  cold  baths,  horseback 
exercise,  regularity  in  meals,  and  temperance 
in  everything.  He  was  always  present  at 
morning  and  evening  prayers  in  the  chapel, 
and  passed  several  hours  of  each  day  in  the 
perusal  of  the  English,  Greek,  and  Latin  clas- 
sics, keeping  up  to  the  last  what  one  chroni- 
cler has  called  "  his  perfect  knowledge  of  the 
French  language."  In  his  ninety-third  year 
he  was  found  by  a  clerical  guest  deeply  en- 
gaged in  the  study  of  Cicero's  treatise  on 
"  Old  Age,"  in  the  original  Latin. 

"  After  the  Bible,"  he  added,  with  his  pecul- 
iar earnestness  and  vivacity  of  manner,  "and 
The  Following  of  Christ,  give  me,  Sir,  the 
philosophic  works  of  Cicero."1 

1  Oration  upon  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  by  Rev.  Constantine 
Pise,  D.D.,  delivered  in  1832. 


Doughoregan  Manor  275 

The  beautiful  close  of  the  long,  long  day 
came  on  November  14,  1832.  Propped  in  his 
easy-chair,  his  daughter  and  her  children,  with 
other  relatives  kneeling  about  him,  he  received 
the  last  offices  of  the  Church.  These  over,  he 
was  laid  upon  the  bed.  His  last  words  were 
a  courteous  acknowledgment  of  his  physi- 
cian's effort  to  make  his  position  easier.  Then 
he  "  fell  on  sleep  "  and  awoke  on  the  Other 
Side. 

•His  grandson,  Charles  (V.)  Carroll,  suc- 
ceeded "  the  Signer  "  in  the  proprietorship  of 
Doughoregan  Manor,  and  he,  in  turn,  was  fol- 
lowed by  his  son,  Charles  (VI.),  born  in  1828. 
His  mother  was  Mary  Digges  Lee,  one  of  the 
Virginia  family  of  that  name.  He  married 
Miss  Caroline  Thompson,  also  a  Virginian  by 
birth.      Mr.  Carroll  died  in  1895. 

The  present  master  of  Doughoregan  Manor 
is  Hon.  John  Lee  Carroll,  Ex-Governor  of  the 
State  of  Maryland.  He  has  been  twice  mar- 
ried :  first,  to  Miss  Anita  Phelps  of  New  York, 
second,  to  Miss  Mary  Carter  Thompson,  a  sis- 
ter of  Mrs.  Charles  (VI.)  Carroll.  Mrs.  John 
Lee  Carroll  died  in  1899. 

One  of  Governor  Carroll's  daughters,  Mary 
Louisa,  married  Comte  Jean  de   Kergolay,  of 


276        More  Colonial  Homesteads 


France  ;  a  second,  Anita  Maria,  became  the 
wife  of  another  French  nobleman,  Baron  Louis 
de  la  Grange  ;  a  third  daughter,  Mary  Helen, 

is  Mrs.  Herbert 
D.  Robbins,  of 
New  York.  Of 
the  sons,  Royal 
Phelps  married 
Miss  Marion 
Langdon,  of 
New  York  city ; 
Charles  (VII.) 
married  Miss 
Susanne  Ban- 
croft. The 
only  child  of 
Governor  Car- 
roll's second 
Philip  Acosta,  lives  with  his  father 
and  his  widowed  aunt  at  Doughoregan  Manor. 
The  short  avenue  leading  directly  from  the 
front  of  the  mansion  to  the  highway  was  for 
many  years  the  principal  approach  used  by 
family  and  visitors.  It  is  bordered  by  large 
trees,  and  affords  a  fine  view  of  central  build- 
ing and  wings,  that  to  the  visitor's  right  being 
the  chapel  built  in    171 7  by  the  first  Charles 


EX-GOVERNOR  JOHN  LEE  CARROLL. 


Doughoregan  Manor  277 

Carroll.  Mrs.  Mary  Digges  Lee  Carroll,  the 
mother  of  Governor  Carroll  and  Charles  (VI.), 
a  woman  of  much  executive  ability  and  refined 
taste,  designed  the  winding  avenue  turning 
away  from  the  main  road  a  few  rods  beyond 
the  extensive  grounds  of  St.  Charles  College. 

After  a  drive  of  six  miles  over  the  macad- 
amised turnpike  laid  between  Ellicott  City 
and  Doughoregan  Manor,  on  the  fourth  of  a 
series  of  torrid  June  days  that  taxed  physical 
and  moral  powers  to  the  utmost,  the  relief  was 
sudden  and  exquisite  as  we  entered  the  green 
arches  of  the  wood  beyond  the  lodge-gates. 

The  crude  newness  of  the  "  City "  I  had 
left  behind,  made  hideously  depressing  by  the 
rough  thoroughfare  torn  up  and  hollowed  to 
receive  the  "  trolley  track,"  to  be  laid  from  the 
railway  station  to  the  College ;  the  glare  from 
the  pale  hot  heavens  reflected  from  the  glit- 
tering white  turnpike  until  I  was  fain  to  close 
my  eyes  upon  the  beauties  of  undulating  hills 
and  fertile  meadows  stretching  away  for  miles 
on  either  side  of  the  cruel  road,  were,  for  the 
next  delicious  half-hour,  as  if  they  had  not 
been.  .  Such  calm,  such  refreshment,  and  such 
generous  breadth  as  had  belonged  to  the  life 
of  him  whose  story  had  engaged  my  thoughts 


278       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

all  day,  were  about  us  and  beyond  us.  The 
dim  depths  of  the  wood  through  which  we 
wound  ;  the  velvety  reaches  of  lawn  that,  by- 
and-by,  appeared  between  the  trees  ;  the  ar- 
tistic grouping  of  plantations  of  shrubbery 
and  larger  growths  ;  the  glass  houses  and  gar- 
dens by  which  we  drove  around  to  the  porch 
and  hospitable  doorway, — all  were  English, 
and  of  a  civilisation  singularly  un-American  in 
design  and  finish. 

The  central  hall  is  luxurious  with  couches, 
cushions,  and  lounging-chairs,  and  full  of  the 
viewless,  pervasive  spirit  of  Home — a  sweet 
and  subtle  presence  that  meets  the  stranger 
upon  the  threshold  like  an  audible  benedic- 
tion. The  lines  of  the  noble  apartment  are 
not  broken  by  the  staircase  which  figures 
prominently  in  the  middle  distance  of  most 
colonial  houses,  and  in  the  narrower  passages 
of  modern  dwellings. 

Upon  the  wall  of  the  inner  and  smaller  hall, 
from  which  the  stairs  wind  to  the  upper  floors, 
hangs  a  map  of  the  estate,  as  laid  out  in  1699 
by  the  grandfather  of  Charles  Carroll  of  Car- 
rollton.  The  primitive  specification  of  "  two 
boundary  oaks"  is  given  upon  the  ancient 
chart.     The  places  of  the  departed  trees  are 


Doughoregan  Manor  279 

now  designated  by  two  memorial  stones. 
There  were  14,500  acres  of  arable  and  wood 
lands  in  this  original  grant  from  the  "  Lord 
Baron  of  Baltimore."  All  but  one  thousand 
acres  still  pertain  to  the  estate.  A  great  slice, 
or  section,  in  the  very  heart  of  the  domain 
is  known  as  "  the  Folly."  Not,  as  it  may  be 
needful  to  explain,  because  it  was  willed  to  cer- 
tain daughters  of  the  house,  Mrs.  McTavish 
and  others.  Whatever  may  have  been  the 
origin  of  the  term,  it  has  become  technical, 
and  occurs  often  in  English  title-deeds. 

From  the  inner  hall  we  enter  the  bedroom 
in  which  "  the  Signer  "  died,  consecrated  even 
more  by  his  blameless  life  than  by  his  holy  de- 
parture. The  adjoining  drawing-room  is  rich 
in  historic  portraits,  conspicuous  among  them 
being  the  Crichton  of  "  Homewood."  The 
walls  are  panelled  from  floor  to  ceiling  in  rich, 
dark  woods,  and  like  all  else  in  house  and 
grounds,  in  perfect  preservation. 

In  a  niche  of  the  dining-room  across  the  hall 
stands  a  tall  clock  that  has  marked  the  hours 
of  birth,  of  living,  and  of  death  for  the  Car- 
roll race  for  over  a  hundred  and  fifty  years. 
From  the  panel  over  the  mantel  the  founder 
of  the   American  branch   of  the   family  looks 


280       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

majestically  down  upon  the  goodly  company 
of  his  lineal  descendants  who  assemble  daily 
about  the  beautiful  board  in  the  middle  of  the 
room.  Near  by,  his  son,  Carroll  of  Annapolis, 
repeats  the  family  lineaments  with  marked 
fidelity.  The  transmission  of  the  racial  type 
with  so  few  modifications  from  generation  to 
generation  is  consequent,  no  doubt,  upon  the 
intermarriages  which  we  have  noted.  We  must 
look  to  other  and  more  occult  influences  to  ac- 
count for  the  extraordinary  resemblance  to 
Charles  Carrol-1  of  "Homewood"  that,  in  one 
of  his  great-grandsons,  is  so  exact  as  to  be 
startling  to  those  who  have  studied  his  por- 
trait in  the  Manor  drawing-room.  The  repro- 
duction of  feature,  colouring,  and  expression 
in  the  third  generation  is  almost  eerie. 

A  likeness  of  "  the  Signer,"  taken  when  he 
had  passed  his  eightieth  year,  is  in  the  dining- 
room.  It  was  given  by  him  to  the  patroon, 
Mr.  Van  Rensselaer,  and  after  the  latter's 
death  was  presented  by  his  daughter  to  Mr. 
Carroll's  family.  The  wainscot  of  this  room 
is  valuable  and  curious  :  a  sort  of  plaster  or 
concrete,  of  a  warm  cream  colour,  sound  and 
smooth,  although  laid  on  and  moulded  more 
than  a  century  ago.     Over  the  doors  are  the 


Doughoregan  Manor  283 

heads  of  wild  animals  killed  in  hunting  by  the 
absent  sons  of  the  household ;  the  yachting- 
cups  upon  the  buffet  were  also  won  by  them. 

What  is,  I  believe,  the  only  private  chapel 
attached  to  a  colonial  homestead,  is  a  silent 
witness  to  the  loyalty  of  the  Carrolls  to  their 
ancestral  faith.  The  few  changes  made  in  the 
interior  have  been  careful  restorations.  We 
see  the  sacred  place  as  the  founders  planned 
it,  seven  generations  ago,  an  oblong  room  of 
admirable  proportions,  and  tasteful,  yet  simple, 
in  decoration.  In  passing  up  the  aisle,  my 
host  stayed  me  to  show  where  the  "  poor  little 
infant,  the  dear  and  engaging"  yearling  of 
Charles  Carroll  of  "  Homewood"  and  Harriet 
Chew,  was  laid.  Mrs.  Darnall,  the  mother- 
in-law  and  aunt  of  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  his 
father,  and  the  wife  to  whose  dear  memory  he 
remained  true  through  fifty*years  of  widower- 
hood,  also  lie  here.  "The  Signer"  was  buried 
under  the  chancel.  Upon  a  mural  tablet  to 
him,  at  the  left  of  the  altar,  is  a  bas-relief  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  with  a  pen 
laid  across  it ;  above  this  are  the  thirteen  stars 
of  the  original  States,  and,  set  high  above  all, 
is  the  Cross,  the  symbol  of  his  religion. 

A  congregation  of  from  three  to  four  hun- 


284       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

dred  meets  here  every  Sunday  for  worship, 
coming  from  all  quarters  of  the  neighbour- 
hood. When  front  and  back  doors  are  open, 
framing  pictures  of  park,  trees,  and  ornamental 
shrubs  ;  when  the  birds,  nesting  in  the  ivied 
curtains  of  the  ancient  walls,  and  running  fear- 
lessly over  the  sward,  join  their  songs  to  organ 
and  chant,  one  gets  very  near  to  Nature's  heart 
and  to  the  Father-heart  that  loveth  all. 


X 

THE  RIDGELY  HOUSE, 
DOVER,  DELAWARE 


"  Soon  after  Penn's  arrival  in  America  he  conceived 
the  idea  of  a  county  seat  in  the  centre  of  '  St.  Jones 
County.'  In  1683  he  issued  a  warrant,  authorizing  the 
surveyor  to  lay  out  a  town  to  be  called  '  Dover.'  It  was 
not  until  1694,  however,  that  the  land  of  the  town  was 
purchased.  .  .  .  The  price  paid  the  Indians  was  two 
match-coats,  twelve  bottles  of  drink,  and  four  handfuls 
of  powder.     The  old  court  house  was  built  in  1697. 

"  Dover  has  sent  to  Washington  a  Secretary  of  State, 
an  Attorney  General,  a  District  Judge,  two  Senators,  and 
eight  Representatives.  To  the  State  she  has  given  four 
Governors,  five  Chancellors,  five  Chief-Justices,  four 
Associate  Judges,  six  Secretaries  of  State,  and  six  At- 
torneys General."  ' 

The  Green  is  the  heart  of  old  Dover. 

It  is  a  quiet  heart,  this  oblong  of  turf  and 
trees,  but  four  or  five  city  blocks  in  length, 
with  "  The   King's   Road  "  running,  like  an  ar- 

1  Ridgely  MSS. 
285 


286       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

tery,  through  it.  About  it  on  all  sides  stand 
homesteads  that  were  here  when  Dover  was 
a  village,  and  the  State  of  which  it  is  the 
capital  was  a  dependence  of  the  British 
Crown.  At  the  eastern  end  is  the  State 
House,  erected  upon  the  site  of  the  older  and 
first  edifice  of  the  same  name  that  was  here 
a  hundred  years  agone.  Hard  by  is  the 
dwelling  built  early  in  the  eighteenth  cent- 
ury, and  subsequently  tenanted  by  Dr.  Sam- 
uel Chew  before  a  goodly  slice  was  pared 
from  southeastern  Pennsylvania  and  christened 
"  Delaware."  (See  "  Cliveden,"  Some  Colonial 
Homesteads,  p.  107).  Here  was  born  Chief- 
Justice  Benjamin  Chew,  who,  prior  to  his  re- 
moval to  Pennsylvania  in  1 754,  was  Speaker 
of  the  House  of  Delegates  in  Dover.  The 
building  is  sound  and  comfortably  habitable 
and  is  still  known  as  "  the  Chew  House,"  al- 
though it  was  occupied  for  several  years  by 
one  of  the  most  eminent  sons  of  Delaware, 
John  Middleton  Clayton.  Mr.  Clayton  was 
Chief-Justice  of  his  native  State,  twice  U.  S. 
Senator,  and,  upon  the  accession  of  General 
Taylor  to  the  Presidency,  Secretary  of  State. 
The  homestead  of  his  brother-in-law,  the  late 
Hon.    Joseph    P.    Comegys,   at   the   other  ex- 


The  Ridgely  House  287 

tremity  of  The  Green,  is  full  of  interesting 
souvenirs  of  the  lives  of  both  these  distin- 
guished men,  and  of  early  periods  of  family 
and  State  history.  Every  foot  of  the  brief 
parallelogram  of  earth  hemmed  about  with 
ancestral  houses  is  steeped  in  tradition  and 
romance.  In  the  busiest  noontime  the  place 
is  never  noisy.  After  learning  who  lived  here 
and  how  they  lived — and  died — fancy  easily 
conjures  up  the  figure  of  the  Muse  of  History 
standing  beside  The  King's  Road,  her  up- 
lifted finger  warning  aside  the  thoughtless  and 
sacrilegious  from  holy  ground. 

I  copy  again  from  the  Ridgely  MSS.  kindly 
placed  at  my  disposal  by  Mrs.  Henry  Ridgely, 
Jr.,  of  Dover. 

"  Here  a  regiment  was  raised  and  mustered  by  Col. 
John  Haslet  before  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  A 
few  days  after  the  news  of  the  act  of  Congress  reached 
Dover  they  marched  to  the  headquarters  of  the  army 
and  placed  themselves  under  the  immediate  command 
of  Gen.  Washington.  They  probably  remained  in  Dover 
long  enough,  however,  to  assist  in  the  ceremony  of  the 
burning  of  the  portrait  of  the  King  of  Great  Britain, 
which  took  place  upon  The  Green  on  the  receipt  of 
Caesar  Rodney's  copy  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence. A  procession  marched  around  the  fire  to  solemn 
music  while  the  President  of  the  State  declared  that, 


More  Colonial  Homesteads 


'  compelled  by  strong  necessity,  thus  we  destroy  even  the 
shadow  of  that  King  who  refused  to  reign  over  a  free 
people.'  Upon  The  Green,  at  a  later  date,  was  the  final 
muster  of  the  gallant  Delaware  regiment  before  their 
disastrous  campaign  in  the  South.  This  regiment  is  said 
to  have  been  in  more  engagements  and  to  have  suffered 
more  than  any  other  troops  of  the  army." 

The  Vining  house  is  nearer  the  arterial  road 
than  the  Comegys  mansion,  and  on  the  north- 
ern side  of  The  Green.  Of  the  family  who 
made  it  famous  I  shall  have  more  to  say  by- 
and-by.  Across  the  road,  and  on  the  same 
side  of  the  street  skirting  The  Green,  is  the 
Ridgely  House,  one  of  the  oldest  dwellings  in 

Dover,    and    almost   in 
&gj)  the  shadow  of  the  State 

^.T  House. 

Ja&ra  The     Honourable 

Henry  (I.)  Ridgely  of 
Devonshire,  England, 
settled  in  Maryland  in 
1659,  upon  a  Royal 
grant  of  6000  acres  of 
land.  He  became  a 
colonel  of  Colonial  Mil- 
itia, Member  of  the  As- 
sembly, one  of  the  Governmental  Council, 
Justice  of  the   Peace,  and   Vestryman  of  the 


RIDGELY  CREST. 


The  Ridgely  House  289 

Parish  Church  of  Anne  Arundel,  dying,  after  a 
prosperous  life,  in  1710. 

His  nameson  and  heir,  Henry  (II.),  lived 
and  died  at  "  Warbridge,"  the  home  the  father 
had  made  near  Annapolis.  Although  but 
thirty  at  his  death  in  1699,  he  left  a  widow 
and  three  children.  With  that  one  who  bore 
his  name,  Henry  (III.),  this  story  has  little  to 
do.  His  biography  and  dwelling-place  are 
catalogued  with  other  Maryland  worthies  and 
homesteads. 

Nicholas  Ridgely,  the  second  son,  was  born 
at  Warbridge  in  1694.  He  was,  therefore, 
thirty-eight  years  old  when  he  removed  to 
"  Eden  Hill,"  a  handsome  plantation  near 
Dover,  and  bought  also  the  house  on  "  The 
Green,"  built  in  1728.  Mr.  Ridgely  at  once 
took  his  place  among  the  leading  citizens  of 
his  adopted  State,  filling  with  honour  the  of- 
fices of  Treasurer  of  Kent  County,  Clerk  of 
the  Peace,  Justice  of  Peace,  Prothonotary  and 
Register  in  Chancery,  and  Judge  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  Newcastle,  Kent,  and  Sussex 
Counties,  enjoying  the  honour  until  his  death 
in  1755- 

"  In  1735,  as  foreman  of  the  Grand  Jury,  he  signed  a 

petition  to  King  George  II.  against  granting  a  charter  to 
19 


290       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Lord  Baltimore,  in  abrogation  of  the  rights  of  the  Penn 
family  in  the  'Three  Lower  Counties.' 

"  In  1745,  he  was  elected  by  Caesar  Rodney  to  be  his 
guardian  ;  and  his  papers  show  his  great  interest  in,  and 
warm  attachment  to,  a  ward  who  proved  to  be  the  most 
distinguished  patriot  of  his  State. 

"  To  his  training  may  partly  be  attributed  the  success- 
ful career  of  Charles  Ridgely,  his  son,  John  Vining,  his 
wife's  grandson,  and  Caesar  Rodney,  his  ward. 

"  His  wife  was  Mary  Middleton,  widow  of  Captain 
Benj.  Vining,  of  Salem,  New  Jersey. 

"  Her  son,  Judge  John  Vining,  married  Phoebe  Wyn- 
koop,  and  their  son  John  was  called  the  '  Patrick  Henry 
of  Delaware,'  a  brilliant  lawyer,  great  wit,  member  of 
the  first  Continental  Congress,  and  known  as  the  '  Pet  of 
Delaware.'  His  sister  Mary  was  a  beautiful  girl  and  a 
great  belle." ' 

Of  whom  more  anon. 

Dr.  Charles  Ridgely  was  born  in  1738, 
studied  medicine,  and  became  an  eminent 
physician,  filling  also  many  positions  of  public 
trust.  His  son  Nicholas,  born  of  his  first  mar- 
riage (to  Mary  Wynkoop),  was  known  as  the 
"  Father  of  Chancery  in  Delaware."  Dr. 
Ridgely's  second  wife,  Anne  Moore,  brought 
him  five  children. 

Henry  Moore  Ridgely,  his  son,  succeeded 
him   in  the  proprietorship  of  the  homestead, 

1  Ridgely  MSS. 


The  Ridgely  House  291 

at  the  father's  death  in  1785.  He  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  bar  in  1802.  An  incident  con- 
nected with  this  stage  of  his  career  is  of 
interest,  as  illustrating  the  temper  and  cus- 
toms of  that  day  and  the  fiery  spirit  of  the 
chief  actor  in  it  : 

"  Dr.  Barrett  of  Dover  was  grossly  insulted  by  a  Mr. 
Shields  of  Wilmington,  and  sought  satisfaction  through 
the  code.  He  desired  Mr.  Ridgely  to  bear  his  chal- 
lenge. Shields  refused  to  meet  Dr.  Barrett,  but  chal- 
lenged Mr.  Ridgely  himself.  The  duel  was  fought,  and 
Mr.  Ridgely  severely  wounded.  For  a  time  his  life  was 
despaired  of,  and  although  he  recovered,  Mr.  Shields 
was  obliged  to  leave  Wilmington,  public  sentiment 
against  him  being  so  strong  that  he  could  not  live  it 
down." 

In  strong  contrast  to  this  stormy  introduc- 
tion, I  give  a  rapid  risumd  of  Henry  Moore 
Ridgely's  public  life  : 

He  was  a  member  of  the  House  in  Con- 
gress from  1811-13;  Secretary  of  the  State 
of  Delaware  in  181 7,  and  again  in  1824,  per- 
forming a  most  valuable  and  laborious  work 
in  this  office,  in  collecting  and  arranging  in 
proper  form  for  preservation  the  scattered 
and  poorly  kept  archives  of  the  State. 

He  was  repeatedly  elected  to  the  Legislat- 


292       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

ure,  and  framed  some  most  important  laws ; 
was  elected  by  the  Legislature  to  the  United 
States  Senate  in  1827,  where  he  was  known, 
as  he  had  been  in  the  House,  as  the  advocate 
of  a  protective  tariff. 

A  true  anecdote  relative  to  the  persistency 
with  which  his  fellow-citizens  thrust  greatness 
upon  him,  their  good  and  gallant  servant, 
faithful  in  the  few  and  lesser  matters  of  his 
stewardship  as  in  the  many  and  weighty,  was 
told  to  me  by  a  member  of  the  family.  It  is, 
of  course,  a  Delaware  edition  of  an  episode  of 
an  Athenian  election  day  more  than  two  thou- 
sand years  old  ;  another  of  the  million  self- 
repetitions  of  history  and  human  nature  : 

Mr.  Ridgely  was  walking  through  "  The 
Green  "  on  the  day  of  his  second  election  to 
Congress  when  a  countryman  accosted  him 
with,  "Say,  Mister!  you  can  Write,  can't 
you  ?  "  Upon  receiving  a  reply,  he  thrust  a 
ticket  into  the  gentleman's  hand,  asking  him 
to  "  scratch  out  Ridgely's  name,"  and  substi- 
tute one  which  he  named  carelessly.  Mr. 
Ridgely  complied,  and  in  handing  the  ticket 
back,  inquired  smilingly  : 

"  Would  you  object  to  telling  me  what  you 
have  against  Mr.  Ridgely  ?    Do  you  know  him  ?" 


The  Ridgely  House  293 

"  Never  saw  him  in  my  life  !  Don't  know 
nothing  against  him.  But  I  certainly  am  sick 
and  tired  of  having  his  name  on  my  ticket 
every  election  day.      That  's  all." 


HENRY  MOORE   RIDGELY. 


Mr.  Ridgely  retired  from  public  life  in  1832. 
He  died  in  the  old  house  on  "  The  Green" 
upon  his  eighty-second  birthday,  August  6, 
1847.      He  left   fifteen  children.      The    eldest 


294       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

of  these,  Henry  (V.)  Ridgely,  is  now,  in  a 
serene  and  honoured  old  age,  a  resident  of 
Dover,  although  his  home  was,  until  recently, 
at  "Eden  Hill."  His  son  Henry  (VI.),  a 
prominent  lawyer,  occupies  the  family  home- 
stead hard  by  the  State  House. 

The  exterior  is  severely  plain.  The  walls 
are  flush  with  the  sidewalk,  the  windows  of 
drawing-room,  library,  and  the  master's  law- 
office  on  the  ground-floor  are  so  low  that 
pedestrians  could  rest  their  elbows  sociably 
upon  the  sills  and  chat  with  the  occupants. 
The  interior  is  unconventional,  full  of  unex- 
pectedness, and  altogether  captivating.  The 
floral  designs  of  the  low  ceilings  are  the  work 
of  Miss  Rose  Virden,  a  Dover  artist  of  much 
promise  and  a  graduate  of  the  Artists'  League 
of  New  York.  The  delicate  tinting  of  draw- 
ing-room walls  and  the  artistic  hangings  of  the 
guest-chamber  contrast  harmoniously  with  the 
dark  panelling  of  the  wide  hall,  which  is  also 
the  library.  In  the  far  corner  of  this  last, 
remote  from  the  fire-place  is  the  quaintest, 
crookedest  staircase  conceivable  by  builder's 
brain  and  passable  by  human  feet.  It  runs 
directly — or  as  directly  as  is  consistent  with 
the  tortuousness  aforesaid — down  into  the  hall. 


The  Ridgely  House  295 

On  this,  the  second  day  of  my  sojourn  in 
the  haunted  house,  I  listen  to  a  story  which 
adds  another  to  the  wraiths  mingling  with  the 
flesh-and-blood  entities  whose  own  the  en- 
chanted ground  is  now.  The  romance  belongs 
to  the  school  represented  by  The  Spectator  s 
list  of  killed  and  wounded  in  Bill  of  Mortality 
of  Lovers.      Such  as — 

"  T.  S,;  wounded  by  Zerlinda's  scarlet  stock- 
ing as  she  was  stepping  out  of  a  coach," 
and — 

"  Musidorus,  slain  by  an  arrow  that  flew 
out  of  a  dimple  in  Belinda's  left  cheek." 

A  daughter  of  the  Ridgely  house  had,  among 
other  marketable  charms,  a  perfect  foot  and 
ankle.  A  susceptible  swain,  who  had  been 
unfortunate  in  his  wooing,  paid  a  farewell  call 
to  his  inamorata  almost  upon  the  eve  of  her 
marriage  with  another  man.  While  seated  in 
the  hall  awaiting  her  appearance,  he  heard  the 
tap  of  her  high-heeled  slippers  on  the  winding 
stairway  and  saw  appear  at  the  last,  steepest 
and  sharpest  turn  of  the  flight — above  the 
slippered  foot, — slender,  round,  supple,  swathed 
in  snowy  silk, — the  ankle  ! 

"  Whereupon,"  concludes  the  laughing  nar- 
rator, "  the  poor  fellow  swooned  away  on  the 


296       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

spot.      It  sounds  very  absurd,  but  that  was  the 
sort  of  thing  they  did  in  those  days." 

Sitting   by  the   window  in    the  same  place 
and,    for  all   I  know   to   the   contrary,   in    the 


WILLIAM  PENN'S  CHAIR  AND  CORNER  OF  LIBRARY  IN   RIDQELY  HOUSE. 


very  chair  the  swooning  swain  may  have 
occupied  on  the  well-nigh  fatal  occasion — I 
hear  another  tale  of  another  sort  of  thing 
they  did  in  those  days. 

Mr.  Nicholas   Ridgely,  as  his  genealogy  has 


The  Ridgely  House  297 

informed  us,  became  the  guardian,  in  1745,  of 
an  orphaned  youth  of  seventeen,  Caesar 
Rodney  by  name. 

"  William  Rodney  married  Alice,  the  daughter  of  Sir 
Thomas  Caesar,  an  eminent  merchant  of  the  city  of 
London,  and  his  son  William  died  near  Dover,  Delaware, 
111  the  year  1708,  leaving  eight  children  and  a  consider- 
able landed  estate  which  was  entailed,  and,  by  the 
decease  of  elder  sons,  finally  vested  in  his  youngest  son, 
Caesar,  who  continued  his  residence  as  a  landed  proprie- 
tor in  Delaware  until  his  death  in  1745. 

11  Caesar  Rodney,  the  eldest  son  of  Caesar,  and  grand- 
son of  William  Rodney,  was  born  in  St.  Jones'  Neck 
ne£r  Dover    in    Kent    County,    Delaware,    in    the    year 

"  Mr.  Ridgely  caused  his  ward  to  be  instructed  in  the 

tssics  and  general  literature,  and  in  the  accomplish- 
nts  of  fencing  and  dancing,  to  fit  his  bearing  and 
manners  becomingly  to  the  station  in  life  in  which  he 
was  born."  * 

:f">Qtwell  was  the  work  done  that  the  princely 
young  fellow  came  into  his  kingdom  at  the 
age  of  twenty-one,  well-equipped  in  body  and 
in  mind  for  leadership  in  society  and  in  State. 
His  brother,  Thomas  Rodney,  has  left  in  MS. 
a  picture  of  Delaware  life  at  that  period  which, 

1  Oration  delivered  by  Hon.  Thomas  F.  Bayard  in  1889,  upon  the 
occasion  of  unveiling  the  monument  of  Caesar  Rodney  at  Dover 
Delaware. 


298       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

in  many  features,  reminds  us  of  New  England, 
rather  than  of  a  Middle  Slave  State  : 

"  Almost  every  family  manufactured  their  own 
clothes  ;  and  beef,  pork,  poultry,  milk,  butter,  cheese, 
wheat,  and  Indian  corn  were  raised  by  themselves,  serv- 
ing them,  with  fruits  of  the  country  and  wild  game,  for 
food  ;  cider,  small  beer,  and  peach  and  apple  brandy, 
for  drink.  The  best  families  in  the  country  but  seldom 
used  tea,  coffee,  chocolate,  or  sugar,  for  honey  was  their 
sweetening.  .  .  .  The  largest  farmers  at  that  time 
did  not  sow  over  twenty  acres  of  wheat,  nor  tend  more 
than  thirty  acres  of  Indian  corn." 

Very  un-New  England,  however,  was  the 
jolly  comradeship  that  prevailed  in  village  and 
country.  Everybody  knew  everybody  else. 
"  Indeed,"  says  the  Rodney  MS., 

"  they  seemed  to  live,  as  it  were,  in  concord,  for  they 
constantly  associated  together  at  one  house  or  another  in 
considerable  numbers,  to  play  and  frolic,  at  which  times 
the  young  people  would  dance,  and  the  elder  ones 
wrestle,  run,  hop,  or  jump,  or  throw  the  disc,  or  play  at 
some  rustic  and  manly  exercises. 

'On  Christmas  Eve  there  was  a  universal  firing  of 
guns,  travelling  'round  from  house  to  house,  during  the 
holiday,  and  all  winter  there  was  a  continual  frolic, 
shooting-matches,  twelfth  cakes,  etc." 

Caesar  Rodney  was  a  favourite  with  high  and 
low,  the  lowest  class  being  represented  by  the 


The  Ridgely  House  299 

negro  slaves.  He  was  "  about  five  feet  ten 
inches  high,"  writes  his  brother.  "  His  person 
was  very  elegant  and  genteel,  his  manners 
graceful,  easy  and  polite.  He  had  a  good 
fund  of  humour  and  the  happiest  talent  in  the 
world  of  making  his  wit  agreeable." 

When  it  was  known  that  he  had  political 
aspirations,  the  popularity  gained  by  the  kind 
heart,  the  pleasing  personality,  and  the  ready 
wit  graded  and  smoothed  the  path  many  found 
arduous.  In  1758,  when  he  was  barely  thirty 
years  of  age,  he  was  High  Sheriff  of  his  native 
county  of  Kent  ;  two  years  later,  a  Judge  of 
the  Lower  Courts.  In  1765,  he  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  "  Stamp  Act  Congress"  which  was 
convened  in  New  York  City.  A  New  York 
newspaper  of  181 2  gives  a  post-mortem  sketch 
of  "  the  estimable  and  patriotic  Caesar  Rod- 
ney, for  many  years  the  great  prop  and  stay 
of  Whiggism  in  the  lower  part  of  his  native 
State." 

In  1766,  he  was  one  of  the  Committee  ap- 
pointed to  draft  resolutions  addressed  to 
George  III.,  thanking  him  for  the  repeal  of  the 
Stamp  Act,  and  assuring  him  of  the  loyalty 
of  the  Delaware  Legislature  and  the  constitu- 
ency   it    represented.      As    a  member   of    this 


300       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Legislature  he  threw  all  the  weight  of  his  in- 
fluence into  the  ineffectual  effort  to  stop  the 
importation  of  slaves  into  Delaware. 

No  man  in  the  Province  had  the  promise  of 
a  brighter  future  than  the  rising  statesman, 
trusted  and  beloved  by  his  fellow-citizens,  the 
co-worker  of  the  first  men  in  the  Colonies — 
when  on  June  7,  1768,  he  wrote  to  his  brother 
of  a  visit  paid  to  Philadelphia  for  the  purpose 
of  consulting  physicians  there  upon  "  a  matter 
that  had  given  him  some  uneasiness."  The 
matter  proved  to  be  a  cancer  in  the  nostrils, 
11  a  most  dangerous  place."  His  friends  strongly 
advised* him  to  "sail  at  once  for  England,  and 
by  no  means  to  trust  to  any  person  here." 

A  few  days  later  he  wrote  again  that  he 
had  decided  to  put  himself  into  the  hands  of 
Dr.  Thomas  Bond  of  Philadelphia.  Should 
the  treatment  adopted  by  him  "  fail  in  making 
a  cure,"  he  should  go  to  England. 

"  But  to  conclude,  ray  case  is  truly  dangerous,  and 
what  will  be  the  event,  God  only  knows.  I  still  live 
in  hopes,  and  still  retain  my  usual  flow  of  spirits.  My 
compliments  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Vining.  Tell  Mrs.  Vining 
the  cloud  now  hanging  over  me,  tho'  dark  and  dismal, 
may  (God  willing)  one  day  disperse." 

Mrs.    Vining    was    the    sister-in-law    of    the 


The  Ridgely  House 


301 


woman  he  had  loved,  and  whom  he  had  hoped 
to  marry  in  the  heyday  of  his  youth  and  popu- 
larity. There  is  nothing  sadder  in  the  archives 
of  the  Vining,  or  Rodney,  or  Ridgely  family 
than  a  creased  and  torn  "  returned  "  letter  in 


TABLE  OWNED  BY  CAPT.  JONES,   1800,   IN    BEDROOM  OF  RIDQELY  HOUSE. 


his  strong,  legible  hand.  It  was  written 
from  his  guardian's  house  in  Dover,  May  27, 
1761.1 

"  Yesterday  evening  (by  Mr.  Chew's  Tom)  I  had  the 
unwelcome  and  unexpected  news  of  your  determining  to 
go   to   Philadelphia,  with   Mr.   &   Misses  Chew— If  you 

1  American  Historical  Register,  July,  1895. 


302       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Remember,  as  we  were  riding  to  Noyontown  Fair,  you 
talked  of  taking  this  journey  &  mentioned  my  going 
with  you  ;  you  know  how  readily  I  \torti\  &  how 
willing  in  this,  as  in  everything  else,  I  was  to  oblige  & 
serve  you.  .  .  .  When  I  was  last  down,  you  seemed  to 
have  given  over  all  thoughts  of  going.  This  determined 
me,  &  accordingly,  gave  Mr.  Chew,  for  answer,  that  he 
might  not  expect  me  with  him  ;  thereby  I  'm  deprived 
of  the  greatest  pleasure  this  World  could  possibly  afford 
me — the  company  of  that  lady  in  whom  all  happiness  is 
placed.  .  .  .  Molly  !  I  love  you  from  my  soul  !  In  this, 
believe  me,  1  'm  sincere,  &  honest  :  but  when  I  think  of 
the  many  amiable  qualifications  you  are  possessed  of — 
all  my  hopes  are  at  an  end — nevertheless  intended 
\toni\  down  this  week,  &  as  far  as  possible  to  have 
known  my  fate.  .  .  .  You  may  expect  to  s*ee  me  at 
your  return.     Till  then,  God  bless  you. 

"  I  'm  Yrs." 

Miss  Mary  (Molly)  Vining  was  the  lovely 
aunt  of  a  more  beautiful  niece  who  was  named 
for  her,  and  was  endeared  to  Caesar  Rodney 
on  that  account.  The  elder  Molly — to  whom 
was  written  the  letter,  so  incoherent  and  ill- 
expressed  that  one  hears  all  through  it  the 
irregular  heart-beats  and  broken  breaths  of 
the  impassioned,  doubting  lover — married  the 
Right  Reverend  Charles  Ingles,  who  was  first 
Bishop  to  the  Colonies.  She  outlived  her 
bridal  day  but  a  year,  dying  in  i  764. 


The  Ridgely  House  303 

She  had,  then,  been  in  her  grave  four  years 
when  the  horrible  shadow  of  doom  overtook 
her  former  suitor,  a  cloud  which  was  never  to 
be  dispersed  until  it  thickened  into  the  night 
of  death.  Fallacious  hopes  ;  discouragements  ; 
a  rally  of  the  brave  soul  to  sustain  the 
"  usual  flow  of  spirits  "  ;  the  valiant  purpose  to 
sink  selfish  dreads  in  unremitting  labours  for 
the  good  of  his  kind  and  his  country — these 
were  the  fluctuations  of  feeling  and  reason  that 
were  to  fill  the  next  fourteen  years  of  the  life 
he  would  not,  could  not,  believe  was  irrepar- 
ably blighted. 

In  one  of  the  deceitful  lulls  in  the  progress 
of  the  disease,  he  accepted  the  appointment  of 
Speaker  of  the  Colonial  Assembly  (in  1769). 
Before  the  session  was  ended  he  was  identi- 
fied with  the  more  resolute  of  the  Colonists 
who  were  already  banding  themselves  together 
to  resist  the  growing  aggressions  of  the  parent 
government.  His  name  stood  first  upon  the 
committee  of  three  deputies  to  the  Contin- 
ental Congress  called  by  the  voice  of  the  people 
to  assemble  in  Philadelphia  in  1774.  Another 
representative  to  this  body  was  George  Wash- 
ington of  Virginia. 

Again  Caesar  Rodney's  name  stood  foremost 


304        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

among  those  of  the  "  Deputies  to  the  general 
Congress  "  called  to  meet  in  Philadelphia,  May 
10,  1776.  Mr.  Bayard  says  of  him  at  this 
crucial  period  in  our  national  struggle  : 

"  He  was  a  man  of  action  in  an  era  of  action  ;  born, 
not  out  of  his  proper  time,  but  in  it  ;  and,  being  fitted 
for  the  hour  and  its  work,  he  did  it  well.  He  was 
recognised,  and,  naturally,  at  once  became  influential 
and  impressive — distinguished  for  the  qualities  which 
were  needed  in  the  days  in  which  he  lived  on  earth.  .  .  . 
Moved  by  patriotic  impulse,  he  had  counselled  the  selec-N 
tion  of  Washington  as  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Col- 
onial forces,  and  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the 
conflict,  sought  to  hold  up  his  hands  and  sustain  him 
at  all  times  and  in  all  ways." 

The  distinguished  orator  goes  on  to  quote 
from  another  eminent  jurist  to  the  effect 
that  "  to  Rodney,  more  than  to  any  other  man 
in  Delaware,  do  we  owe  the  position  which 
our  State  and  people  took  in  that  most  im- 
portant contest," — i.  e.,  the  War  for  Inde- 
pendence. 

In  furtherance  of  the  great  purpose  he  had 
at  heart,  he  came  home  to  strengthen  the 
hearts  of  timid  constituents  and  to  advise  with 
cool  heads  and  steadfast  hearts  like  his  own, 
over  the  final  step,  then  imminent,  to  be  taken 
by  Congress. 


The  Ridgely  House  305 

"  On  one  side  stand  a  doubtful  experience  and 
a  bloody  war  ;  on  the  other  side  unconditional 
submission  to  the  power  of  Great  Britain." 

This  was  the  situation  as  he  put  it  before 
himself  and  his  fellow-citizens.  If  they  had 
much  to  lose,  he  had  more  :  fortune,  the  friends 
of  years,  many  of  whom,  even  those  in  the 
Congress  with  him,  were  opposed  to  the  formal 
severance  of  the  tie  binding  Great  Britain  to 
her  restless  colonies  ;  probably  his  life,  for  he 
was  colonel  of  the  "  upper  regiment  of  Kent 
County,"  and  pledged  to  bring  fifteen  hun- 
dred men  into  the  field  should  war  be  de- 
clared. He  was  absent  from  Congress  upon 
this  errand,  and  energetically  canvassing  the 
counties  of  Sussex  and  his  native  Kent,  when 
Richard  Henry  Lee  of  Virginia,  on  June  7th, 
executed  his  immortal  coup  d'ttat  by  offering 
the  resolution,  "  That  the  United  States  are, 
and  ought  to  be,  free  and  independent  States, 
and  that  political  connexion  with  Great  Britain 
ought  to  be  dissolved." 

The  resolution  was  passed  in  secret  session 
by  six  out  of  seven  States,  on  June  8th. 

Caesar  Rodney,  Thomas  McKean,  and 
George  Read  were  delegates  from  Delaware. 
McKean  voted  for   the  resolution  ;   Read,  al- 


306        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

though  Rodney's  intimate  friend,  against  it, 
making  a  tie  in  the  State  vote.  A  second 
vote,  to  secure  unanimity  if  possible,  was 
taken  on  July  ist.  Nine  colonies  were  in  fa- 
vour of  the  passage  of  the  motion  into  an 
act  ;  South  Carolina  and  Quaker  Pennsyl- 
vania were  against  it.  Delaware  was  divided, 
as  before.  A  third  ballot  was  ordered  for 
July  4th,  and  Thomas  McKean,  aroused  to 
frantic  energy  by  the  peril  of  the  occasion, 
mounted  a  trusty  messenger  upon  a  swift 
horse  and  bade  him  ride,  as  for  life,  to  find 
Caesar  Rodney,  and  bring  him  to  Philadelphia. 

Local  and  family  traditions  give  an  explana- 
tion of  his  prolonged  absence  and  silence  at 
this  crisis  which  is  not  offered  by  history.  Ac- 
cording to  this,  McKean  had  not  waited  until 
the  eleventh  hour  before  summoning  his  col- 
league. More  than  one  letter  had  been  de- 
spatched to  Kent,  describing  the  gravity  of 
the  position  at  headquarters,  and  entreating 
Rodney  to  hasten  his  return.  Not  one  line 
of  these  had  reached  the  unconscious  ab- 
sentee. 

Postal  facilities  were  few  and  slow,  and 
Rodney  seems  to  have  rested  in  the  convic- 
tion that  McKean  would  recall  him  if  he  were 


The  Ridgely  House  307 

needed,  to  have  and  gone  on  with  his  can- 
vass unconcernedly,  addressing  public  meet- 
ings, visiting  from  plantation  to  plantation, 
and,  in  the  interim  of  pressing  duties,  solacing 
his  cares  by  the  society  of  intimate  friends, 
notably  the  Vinings  and  Ridgelys,  when  he 
was  in  Dover. 

Mr.  Bayard  opines  that  the  express,  sent, 
Mr.  McKean  says,  at  his  own  private  expense, 
"  must  have  found  Mr.  Rodney  at  one  of  his 
farms,  '  Byfield,'  or  '  Poplar  Grove.' ,: 

I  could  not  forgive  myself  if  I  did  not  give 
the  afore-mentioned  tradition  (in  this  instance 
as  truthful  as  her  younger  and  more  cautious 
sister,  History)  in  the  very  words  of  the 
Ridgely  MSS.,  produced  for  me,  at  my  ear- 
nest petition,  at  this  point  of  the  story  : 

"  A  celebrity  of  Lewes,  the  old  seaport  of  Delaware, 
was  Sarah  Rowland,  who,  according  to  tradition,  almost 
prevented  the  Declaration  of  Independence  from  having 
the  necessary  number  of  signers. 

"  She  was  a  beautiful  Tory,  for,  in  the  first  years  of 
the  Revolutionary  War,  there  were  many  friends  of  Eng- 
land in  the  lower  part  of  this  peninsula.  The  news  of  a 
Tory  uprising  in  Sussex  County  and  Maryland  reaching 
Caesar  Rodney,  who  was  attending  the  Delegates'  Con- 
vention in  Philadelphia,  he  immediately  mounted  his 
horse  and  went  thundering  down  the  State,  using  threats 


308       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

and  persuasions  all  along  the  roach  While  at  Lewes  the 
beautiful  Sarah  so  infatuated  him  by  her  charms  that  he 
lingered  longer  than  his  business  required,  and  was  only 
aroused  to  a  sense  of  his  delintjuencies  when  he  was  pre- 
sented by  a  loyal  servant-girl  in  the  Rowland  household 
with  a  number  of  letters  which  had  .been  intercepted  by 
his  enchantress.  Then  it  was  that  he  made  his  famous 
ride  to  Philadelphia.  This  story  adds  many  miles  to  the 
length  of  his  ride,  as,  in  most  accounts,  he  was  at  his 
home  near  Dover  when  the  call  to  Philadelphia  came." 

Return  we  to  Mr.  Bayard  and  history  : 

"  You  may  know  how  little  time  there  was  for  dainty 
preparation — barely  enough  for  tightening  of  saddle- 
girths  and  buckling  on  of  spurs — before  the  good  horse 
stood  ready  to  be  mounted,  and  our  hero  began  his  im- 
mortal ride  on  that  hot  and  dusty  July  day,  to  carry 
into  the  Congress  of  the  Colonies  the  vote  he  held  in 
trust  for  the  people  of  Delaware,  and  which  was  needed 
to  make  the  Declaration  of  American  Independence  the 
unanimous  act  of  thirteen  united  States." 

From  the  window-seat  of  the  old  house, 
which  was  the  bachelor  hero's  dearest  earthly 
home,  I  see,  bisecting  "  The  Green,"  what  is 
still  known  as  "  The  King's  Highway,"  along 
which  the  rider  dashed  through  Dover  when 
the  noonday  sun  was  at  the  hottest.  The 
hostelry,  "  King  George's  Arms,"  stood  at 
that  corner,  facing  the  open  square.      There, 


The  Ridgely  House  311 

at  Rodney's  imperative  shout,  a  fresh  horse 
was  brought  to  him,  and  he  was  again  in  the 
saddle  and  away  at  breakneck  speed,  riding, 
not  for  his  own,  but  for  a  Nation's  life. 

"  He  is  up  !  he  is  off  !  and  the  black  horse  Mies 
On  the  Northward  road  ere  the  '  God  speed '  dies  ; 
It  is  gallop  and  spin,  as  the  leagues  they  clear 
And  the  clustering  milestones  move  arear."  ' 

On  the  morning  of  July  4th,  Thomas  Mc- 
Kean,  until  then  ignorant  of  the  success  of  his 
messenger,  met  Caesar  Rodney  "at  the  State 
House  door,  in  his  boots  and  spurs,  as  the 
members  were  assembling." 

The  briefest  of  salutations  was  exchanged, 
and  not  a  word  as  to  the  momentous  business 
before  them.  Not  a  moment  could  be  lost, 
for  they  were  the  last  to  enter  the  hall,  and  the 
proceedings  had  begun.  They  were  hardly  in 
their  seats  when  "  the  Great  Question  was  put." 

At  the  call  for  the  vote  of  Delaware,  all 
eyes  were  turned  to  the  bronzed  face  and  dis- 
ordered attire  of  him  who  was  to  break  the 
"tie."  He  arose  composedly,  and  spoke  with 
calm  deliberateness  : 

"  As  I  believe  the  voice  of  my  constituents 
and  of  all  sensible  and  honest  men  is  in  favor 

1  "Caesar  Rodney's  Ride." 


312       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

of  independence,  my  own  judgment  concurs 
with  them.    I  vote  for  Independence." 

Neither  romancist  nor  dramatist  need  add 
to,  or  take  away  from,  the  thrilling  incident  of 
Caesar  Rodney's  Ride.  When  one  considers 
the  tremendous  issue  involved,  the  character 
of  the  man  who  risked  health,  already  infirm, 
to  fulfil  his  pledge  to  colleague  and  to  con- 
science, and  the  quiet  dignity  with  which  he 
redeemed  it — the  scene  is  sublime. 

The  Rodney  coat  of  arms  bears  the  motto, 
Non  generant  Aquilce  Columbas  ("  Eagles  do 
not  beget  doves  "). 

This  one  of  the  brood,  albeit  knowing  that 
he  was  fatally  hurt,  bore  himself  gallantly  to 
the  last.  He  was  General  Rodney  in  1777, 
when  ordered  by  Washington  to  "  gather  his 
Delaware  troops  in  close  proximity  to  the 
enemy  ;  to  hang  upon  his  flank,  observe  and 
report  his  movements,  harass  his  outposts,  and 
protect  the  surrounding  country  from  maraud- 
ing parties."  The  honour  was  no  sinecure.  His 
letters  to  Washington  are  models  of  concise- 
ness and  comprehensiveness,  yet  are  worded 
with  a  sort  of  respectful  familiarity  betokening 
an  entente  cordiale  between  the  two  men,  unu- 
sual in   the  circumstances.      Rodney's  "  usual 


The  Ridgely  House  313 

flow  of  spirits  "  had  not  deserted  him.  "  God 
only  knows,"  was  still  his  staff  and  strength. 

"  Be  assured  all  I  can  do  shall  be  done,"  he 
assures  the  Commander-in-Chief.  "  But  he 
that  can  deal  with  militia  may  almost  venture 
to  deal  with  the  devil.  As  soon  as  I  can  set 
forward  I  shall  advise  you.  God  send  you  a 
complete  victory ! " 

All  the  while  he  suffered  unspeakably  in 
body.  Aware  that  the  loves  of  home  and  fam- 
ily could  never  be  his,  he  poured  out  his  ardent 
soul  and  great  heart  in  a  passion  of  patriotism. 
His  last  important  public  declaration  of  this 
absorbing  devotion  is  embodied  in  a  resolution 
passed  by  the  Delaware  General  Assembly  in 
1782,  when  the  war  was  supposed  to  be  virtu- 
ally at  an  end  : 

"Resolved:  That  the  whole  power  of  this 
State  shall  be  exerted  for  enabling  Congress 
to  carry  on  the  war  until  a  peace  consistent 
with  our  Federal  union  and  national  faith  can 
be  obtained." 

He  lived  to  see  that  peace  established.  Just 
one  year  after  the  terms  of  the  definite  treaty 
were  signed  (in  1 783)  the  Legislature  of  Dela- 
ware "met  at  the  house  of  Hon.  Caesar  Rod- 
ney,  Esq.,  the   Speaker,  he   being   too   much 


314       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

indisposed  to  attend  the  usual  place  of 
meeting." 

He  died  the  next  month  (June,  1784). 

For  almost  a  third  of  his  earthly  existence 
he  had  been  the  tortured  victim  of  the  malady 
which  killed  him  at  last,  an  affliction  peculiarly 
humiliating  to  a  proud,  sensitive  man  who, 
freed  from  it,  would  have  been  the  possessor 
of  all  that  makes  life  best  worth  living. 


XI 


OTHER  "OLD  DOVER"  STORIES  AND  HOUSES 

/V/TY  dear  young  hostess  of  the  Ridgely 
*  *  *  homestead  is  still  the  raconteuse.  She 
has  a  story  in  a  lighter  vein  to  beguile  me 
from  the  reverie  into  which  I  have  fallen,  with 
Dover  Green  and  the  King's  Highway  before 
my  eyes,  and,  in  the  ears  of  my  imagination, 
the  echoes  of  those  flying  hoofs  that, —  to 
quote  for  the  last  time  frorn  the  Delaware  ora- 
tor :  "  will  reverberate  in  American  ears  like 
the  footfalls  of  Fate — 


Far  on  in  summers  that  we  shall  not  see.'  " 

In  1840,  Lucretia  Mott  was  advertised  as 
intending  to  lecture  in  Dover,  and  the  conserv- 
ative, slave-holding  element  of  the  town  pro- 
tested indignantly  against  the  measure.  When 
she  and  her  companions  appeared  on  the  day 
set  for  the  lecture,  they  were  given  to  under 

315 


316       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

stand  that  the  attempt  would  be  dangerous. 
To  the  menace  was  added  a  demand  that  the 
party'  leave  Dover  at  once.  Judge  Henry 
Moore  Ridgely  interfered  boldly  between  the 
obnoxious  visitors  and  the  rising  mob. 

"  Not  " — as  he  explained  privately  to  his 
family — "  that  I  am  fond  of  abolitionists.  But 
I  will  not  have  a  woman  insulted  in  this  town." 

He  welcomed  Mrs.  Mott  and  her  aides  to  his 
own  house,  and  invited  a  dozen  or  more  prom- 
inent members  of  the  Legislature,  then  in 
session,  to  meet  them  at  supper  that  evening. 
But  two  of  those  bidden  to  the  feast  came. 
Both  of  these  men  were  lovers  of  Miss 
Ridgely,  the  host's  daughter,  and  neither  dared 
decline,  lest  his  rival  should  score  a  point 
against  him  by  accepting. 

I  give  the  scene  at  the  Court  House  in 
another's  words  : 

"  When  supper  was  over  Lucretia  Mott  announced  her 
intention  of  speaking  that  evening  in  the  Court  House 
at  Dover  ;  Judge  Ridgely,  feeling,  no  doubt,  that  his 
presence  might  be  a  protection  to  the  Quakers,  offered 
to  accompany  them  thither  ;  Miss  Ridgely,  whose  heart 
was  quite  won  by  Mrs.  Mott's  gentle  manner  and  de- 
lightful fluency  in  conversation,  begged  that  she  might 
go  also,  to  hear  the  address,  and  Mr.  DuPont,  one  of  the 
Members    aforesaid   offered    to   be  her    escort.      Judge 


ELIZABETH  RIDQELY,   DAUGHTER  OF  JUDGE  HENRY  MOORE  RIDQELY. 

(AGED    19.) 


317 


Other  "Old  Dover"  Stories      319 

Ridgely  took  Lucretia  Mott  under  his  protection,  gave 
her  his  arm,  and  led  the  way,  followed  by  the  rest  of  the 
Quakers  and  his  daughter  with  Mr.  DuPont.  The  little 
party  reached  the  Court  House  in  safety,  notwithstand- 
ing that  they  were  subjected  to  threatening  murmurs 
and  surly  looks  from  the  bystanders,  who  wished  to 
prevent  Mrs.  Mott  from  speaking  in  Dover  ;  but  Judge 
Ridgely  conducted  her  safely  to  the  platform,  looking 
around  upon  the  crowd  and  saying,  '  I  dare  you  to  touch 
her  !  ' 

"  Mrs'.  Mott  then  made  an  earnest  and  beautiful  ad- 
dress, but  without  any  allusion  to  the  exciting  subject  of 
Slavery,  and  all  present  were  delighted  with  it." 

There  was  more  to  follow  before  the  event- 
ful visit  was  over.  After  the  lecture  the  com- 
pany returned  to  Judge  Ridgely's  house  and 
sat  about  the  drawing-room  fire,  in  full  view 
of  a  gathering  crowd  without.  For  Judge 
Ridgely  had  sternly  refused  to  have  the  shut- 
ters closed,  and  the  windows,  as  I  have  said, 
opening  directly  upon  the  sidewalk,  are  so  low 
in  the  wall  as  to  allow  passers-by  to  look  into 
the  ground-floor  rooms.  In  emulation  of  her 
entertainers'  equanimity,  the  stout-hearted 
Quakeress  feigned  not  to  observe  the  dark 
faces  pressed  against  the  panes,  or  to  hear  the 
hoarse  murmurs  from  without,  like  the  wash 
of  the   surge  upon  the  beach  before  a  rising 


320        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

storm.  She  had  never  been  more  brilliant  in 
talk,  or  apparently  more  happily  at  her  ease, 
almost  charming  her  auditors  into  forgetful- 
ness  of  what  might  be  impending  should  the 
tempers  of  the  rioters  finally  break  through 
the  restraint  of  one  man's  influence  and  defy 
his  authority. 

The  scene  was  full  of  dramatic  elements, 
had  any  of  the  spectators  been  sufficiently 
cool-headed  to  note  and  appreciate  these.  By 
and-by,  Lucretia  Mott  arose  to  her  feet  in 
telling  a  story  that  demanded  animated  action. 
A  young  daughter  of  the  house,  fancying  that 
she  was  weary  of  sitting  and  wished  to  walk 
about  the  room,  drew  back  Mrs.  Mott's  chair 
to  give  her  more  space.  Simultaneously  with 
this  action,  the  lady  sat  down  again,  and  had 
a  hard  fall.  The  rival  suitors  were  nearer  to 
her  than  Judge  Ridgely.  One  stood  stock- 
still  and  laughed.  The  other  sprang  to  the  as- 
sistance of  the  abolitionist,  raised  her,  assisted 
her  carefully  to  a  seat,  and  begged  to  know  if 
he  could  help  her  in  any  other  way. 

Miss  Ridgely  spoke  her  mind  to  Mr.  Du- 
Pont  the  next  day,  when  Lucretia  Mott  and 
her  friends  were  safely  out  of  Dover. 

"You   proved   yourself   a   true    man  and  a 


Other  "Old  Dover"  Stories      321 

thoroughbred,"  said  her  father's  daughter. 
"  The  other  is  neither  !  " 

There  are  other  stories — dozens  of  them — 
lingering  about  the  house,  and  stealing  in  with 
the  odour  of  the  honeysuckles  from  the  garden 
at  the  back.  The  garden  where  the  box-bushes 
have  grown,  in  a  century  and  more,  into  great 
trees  and  thick  hedges,  on  the  top  of  which  one 
may  walk  fearlessly,  as  upon  a  wall.  Where 
Judge  Nicholas  Ridgely  and  his  family,  includ- 
ing Caesar  Rodney,  liked  to  take  tea  all  summer 
long. 

"  I  seem  to  know  them  so  well  and  to 
have  seen  them  there  so  often  that  I  could 
paint  the  group  if  I  were  an  artist,"  says  Mrs. 
Ridgely. 

And  I,  awakened  by  memories  of  it  all  at 
early  morning,  before  the  birds  have  stopped 
singing  to  breakfast  in  the  cherry  trees,  make 
a  picture  for  myself  and  hang  it  upon  a  nail 
fastened  in  a  sure  place  in  my  mental  gallery. 

The  next  day  is  filled  with  sight-seeing  and 
dreaming.  The  pretty  town  is  rich  in  historic 
shrines.  We  drive  by  the  picturesque  little 
church,  so  clothed  upon  with  ivy  we  can  hardly 
see  the  venerable  walls  of  the  burial-ground 
in  which  the  remains  of  Caesar  Rodney,  brought 


322        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

from  "  Poplar  Grove  "  in  1887  by  the  "  Rodney 
Club  "  of  young  Delawareans,  were  laid  with 
appropriate  ceremonies.  In  1889,  tne  monu- 
ment overtopping  the  churchyard  wall  was 
erected  by  the  same  organisation,  Henry 
Ridgely,  Jr.,  the  descendant  of  the  hero's 
guardian,  being  the  President. 

"  Woodburn  "  opens  hospitable  doors  to  us, 
when  our  eyes  ache  somewhat  with  much 
gazing,  and  the  dust  stirred  by  our  wheels  re- 
awakens sympathy  with  the  mad  rider  of  1776. 
There  is  an  ocean-cave,  coral-grove  effect  of 
whiteness  and  shade,  in  the  spacious  hall  where 
Mrs.  Holmes  and  her  son  welcome  us.  The 
weight  of  unperformed  duties  slips  from  our 
souls  for  an  enchanted  hour,  while  we  look 
and  listen.  The  woodwork  of  the  lofty  rooms 
was  paid  for  by  the  Colonial  proprietor  by  the 
transfer  of  a  valuable  farm  to  the  builder. 
The  toothed  cornices  were  carved  by  hand, 
as  were  the  deep  panels  of  the  doors,  the  win- 
dow-casings and  -seats  and  the  wainscots.  All 
are  as  sound  and  whole  as  if  they  had  left  the 
workman's  hand  ten,  and  not  one  hundred  and 
forty,  years  ago. 

The  hostess  speaks  when  we  are  midway  in 
the  easy  ascent  of  the  noble  staircase  : — 


REAR  VIEW  OF  RIDQELY  HOUSE  FROM  THE  GARDEN. 

(BUILT    1728.) 


323 


Other  "Old  Dover"  Stories      325 

"Just  here,  Lorenzo  Dow  passed  the  'old 
gentleman,  the  other  visitor.'  " 

Then  we  have  one  of  the  authentic  ghost- 
stories,  such  as  my  soul  loveth  : 

"  You  will  find  it  in  Lorenzo  Dow's  pub- 
lished works.  He  was  a  guest  in  this  house 
for  several  days.  The  morning  after  his  ar- 
rival, on  his  way  down  to  prayers  and  break- 
fast, he  overtook  on  the  stairs  an  old  gentleman 
in  Continental  costume, — long  coat  and  waist- 
coat, knee-breeches  and  long  stockings.  His 
white  hair  was  tied  at  the  back  of  his  neck 
in  a  queue,  and  he  moved  slowly,  as  if  in- 
firm, holding  to  the  rail  as  he  walked.  Mr. 
Dow  bowed  respectfully  in  passing  him,  but 
neither  spoke.  When  the  lady  of  the  house 
requested  Mr.  Dow  to  begin  family  worship, 
he  asked  :  '  Are  we  not  to  wait  for  the  other 
visitor  ? '    . 

"  '  Whom  do  you  mean  ?  There  is  no  other 
visitor  in  the  house.' 

" '  The  old  gentleman  I  passed  upon  the 
stairs  just  now,'  he  persisted. 

"  The  hostess  coloured  painfully,  and  seemed 
very  uneasy,  and  the  matter  was  dropped. 
Mr.  Dow  learned,  afterward,  that  others  be- 
sides himself  had  seen  the  apparition,  and  that, 


326        More  Colonial  Homesteads 

for  some  reason,  the  subject  was  a  sore  one  to 
the  family." 

The  ghostly  visitant  showed  himself  again, 
and  in  broad  daylight,  to  a  guest  of  a  later 
generation  than  Lorenzo  Dow's.  A  college- 
boy,  coming  to  spend  some  time  at  Wood- 
burn,  was  shown  to  his  room,  a  pleasant 
chamber  on  the  second  floor,  opening  upon  the 
wide,  airy  hall  we  traverse  to  the  scene  of  his 
adventure.  A  long  glass  is  at  one  end,  and  as 
we  stand  before  it,  we  see,  reflected  in  it,  the 
window,  and  a  chair  set  within  its  embrasure. 
The  youth  was  brushing  his  hair  and  arrang- 
ing his  cravat  when  he  beheld  in  the  mirror 
the  figure  of  an  old  man,  dressed  as  I  have 
described,  sitting  quietly  in  the  chair  and  look- 
ing straight  at  him. 

"  Hope  I  don't  intrude  !  "  said  the  collegian 
jauntily,  turning  toward  the  stranger,  who,  on 
the  instant,  vanished.  A  comical  touch  is  sup- 
plied to  the  tale  by  another  Dover  resident, 
who  adds  gravely  that  the  old  gentleman  went 
to  pieces  jerkily  before  the  poor  boy's  horrified 
eyes,  his  arms  going  in  one  direction,  and  his 
legs  in  another. 

Natheless — as  the  books  used  to  say  -when 
the  old  gentleman  was  solid  flesh  and  bone — the 


Other  "Old  Dover"  Stories      327 

collegian  declared  that  he  was  sane  and  sober 
when  he  saw  the  apparition,  and  could  not  be 
persuaded  to  stay  in  the  chamber  or  house 
after  the  unpleasant  dismemberment  of  his 
roommate. 

A  modern  story-wright,  George  Alfred 
Townsend,  says  of  "  Woodburn  "  : 

"  Built  by  a  tyrannical,  eccentric  man,  it  passed 
through  several  families  until  a  Quaker  named  Cowgill, 
who  afterwards  became  a  Methodist,  made  it  his  prop- 
erty.    .     .     . 

"  The  first  owner,  it  was  said,  had  amused  himself  in 
the  great  hall-room  by  making  his  own  children  stand 
on  their  toes,  switching  their  feet  with  a  whip  when  they 
dropped  upon  their  soles  from  pain  or  fatigue.  His  own 
son  finally  shot  at  him  through  the  great  northern  door 
with  a  rifle  or  pistol,  leaving  the  mark  to  this  day,  to  be 
seen  by  a  small  panel  set  in  the  original  pine.  .  .  .  The 
room  over  the  great  door  has  always  been  considered 
the  haunt  of  peculiar  people  who  molested  nobody  liv- 
ing, but  appeared  there  in  some  quiet  avocation,  and 
vanished  when  pressed  upon." 

The  present  occupants  are  the  descendants 
of  a  Dover  lawyer  who  bought  the  place  about 
fifty  years  ago. 

We  get  no  ghostly  anecdote  during  our  call 
upon  the  Misses  Bradford,  who  occupy  a  be- 
witching homestead  built  by  one  of  the  Loock- 


328       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

erman  family  in  1746.  We  are  introduced, 
instead,  to  a  wealth  of  old  china,  much  of  it 
older  than  the  house,  each  piece  of  it  an  heir- 
loom beyond  price.  It  is  arranged  in  orderly 
rows  within  corner  cupboards  reaching  to  the 
ceiling,  showing  so  many  unbroken  sets  that 
one  conceives  a  profound,  almost  an  awed, 
respect  for  housewifery  that  must  also  have 
been  a  transmitted  heritage  from  age  to  age. 
The  curious  tiled  fireplaces  have  shared  in  the 
care  which  warded  off  craze  and  crack  and  nick 
from  other  fragile  treasures  ;  there  are  curtained 
bedsteads,  solid  mahogany,  with  twisted  posts 
and  carved  headboards,  and  chairs  yet  older, 
and  ancient  tables  of  divers  patterns,  and  a 
wonderful  escritoire  with  a  secret  drawer  we 
cannot  refind  after  the  location  and  way  of 
working  have  been  explained  and  illustrated 
to  us  twice  over. 

The  Bradford  garden  is  a  "  good  second " 
to  the  house  and  its  plenishing.  An  enormous 
box-tree  is  believed  to  be  a  century  old,  and 
looks  half  as  old  again.  It  has  a  round  poll, 
green  and  firm,  and  is  perhaps  fifty  feet  in  cir- 
cumference. Iris  beds — purple,  white,  white- 
and-purple,  and  yellow — line  the  walks  ;  peo- 
nies,  pinks,   cinnamon-roses,   and   many  other 


WOODBURN,"    DOVER,    DEL. 


329 


Other  "Old  Dover"  Stories      331 

dear  flowers  planted  and  tended  by  our  great- 
grandmothers,  grow  where  they  were  set  when 
the  portrait  of  King  George  III.  was  burned 
upon  Dover  Green,  and, 

"  From  that  soft  midland  where  the  breezes  bear 
The  North  and  South  on  the  genial  air  ; 
Through  the  County  of  Kent,  on  affairs  of  State, 
Rode  Caesar  Rodney  the  Delegate." 

Thoughts  and  talk  recur  to  him  as  we  pass 
the  Vining  house  on  our  homeward  way. 

We  have  seen,  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
that  Judge  Nicholas  Ridgely's  third  wife  was 
Mrs.  Mary  Middleton  Vining.  She  was  the 
widow  of  a  wealthy  citizen  of  Salem,  and,  in 
accordance  with  a  pledge  made  to  him  on  his 
deathbed,  secured  her  large  fortune  to  their 
three  children  before  her  second  marriage. 
Her  brilliant  son,  Chief-Justice  John  Vining, 
was  the  father  of  the  "  Revolutionary  belle," 
Mary  Vining,  the  name-child  of  the  aunt  who 
was  Caesar  Rodney's  first  love. 

A  charming  sketch  of  the  younger  Mary 
Vining,  written  by  Mrs.  Henry  Geddes  Ban- 
ning, appeared  in  the  American  Historical  Re- 
gister for  July,  1895.  Every  child  in  Dover 
has  heard  her  name  and   some  particulars  of 


332       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

her  life.  Mrs.  Banning,  a  descendant  of 
Thomas  Rodney,  Caesar  Rodney's  brother  and 
executor,  is  in  possession  of  several  relics  of 
the  American. beauty  whose  fame  was  carried 
back  to  France  and  England  by  officers  who 
served  in  the  Revolutionary  struggle. 

"  Thomas  Jefferson,  when  minister  plenipotentiary  to 
France,  was  proud  to  assure  the  lovely  Queen  of  France 
that  the  extravagant  admiration  of  the  Delaware  belle 
by  the  French  officers,  which  had  reached  her  ears,  was 
no  exaggeration,  for  the  American  lady  was  worthy  of  it 
all.  Marie  Antoinette  replied  she  would  be  glad  to  see 
her  at  the  Tuileries.  .  .  .  She  was  mentioned  in 
flattering  terms,  also,  at  the  English  Court  of  George  III., 
and  likewise  at  the  Court  of  Germany."  ' 

Besides  the  marriage  which  connected  her 
with  the  family  of  her  step-grandfather,  Judge 
Nicholas  Ridgely,  she  was  related  by  blood  to 
the  Ridgelys  and  Rodneys,  and  a  great  pet  in 
both  families.  But  one  of  the  many  letters 
written  by  her  has-  been  preserved  for  our 
reading.  The  loss  to  the  epistolary  literature 
of  that  period  is  inestimable,  for  her  pen  was  as 
facile  as  the  tongue  that  gained  her  the  re- 
putation of  being  the  finest  conversationalist 
of  her  generation.     She    spoke    French  with 

1  American  Historical  Register. 


Other  "Old  Dover"  Stories      333 

grace  and  fluency ;  her  voice  was  rich  and 
flexible,  her  charm  of  manner  irresistible  and 
indescribable.  Her  brother,  John  Middleton 
Vining,  the  "  Pet  of  Delaware,"  shared  with  her 
the  magic  and  mysterious  gift  of  personal 
magnetism  that  gives  plausibility  to  the  folk- 
stories  of  fairy  conclaves  and  presentations 
about  the  cradles  of  certain  infants,  who  are, 
thenceforward,  blessed  or  banned. 

When  Caesar  Rodney  was  Governor  of 
Delaware,  (in  1778)  he  hired  a  house  in 
Wilmington  for*  the  winter,  and  his  young 
kinswoman,  Mary  Vining,  was  the  presiding 
genius  of  every  entertainment  given  by  him 
when  women  were  present.  Lafayette  was  a 
close  friend  and  frequent  guest  of  the  bachelor 
host. 

.  "  It  was  in  the  cellar  of  this  house  that,  the 
Governor  consenting,  General  Lafayette  stored 
his  little  casks  of  gold  wherewith  to  pay  his 
little  army,  and  help  the  cause  of  freedom," 
Mrs.  Banning  says,  and  proceeds  to  narrate 
the  following  pleasing  incident : 

"  My  grandfather,  C.  A.  Rodney,  was  a  boy  at  this 
time,  and  he  related  this  anecdote  to  my  mother :  '  I 
was  studying  my  Latin  by  the  parlour  fire  when  the  door 
opened,  and   Miss  Vining  appeared  in  full   dress.     She 


334       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

approached  the  mantel,  looking  approvingly  at  the  re- 
flection in  the  glass.  She  observed  my  look  of  fixed 
admiration,  for  she  turned  and  said,  extending  her  hand 
to  me — "  Come  here,  you  little  rogue,  and  you  shall  kiss 
my  hand."  I  refused,  drawing  back  with  boyish  bash- 
fulness,  when  she  replied, "  You  might  be  glad  to  do  so  ! 
1  Princes  have  lipped  it '  "  (from  Cleopatra).  All  the 
time,  I  did  think  her  the  most  beautiful  creature  I  ever 
saw,  and  I  still  recall  her  as  a  beautiful  picture.  .  .  .  '  " 

The  beauty  was  capricious — as  was  natural. 
She  was,  also,  spoiled  and  imperious,  with  all 
her  gracious  sweetness  of  disposition  and  man- 
ner— as  was  inevitable.  The  Frenchmen 
lost  their  heads,  and  told  her  so  in  ecstatic 
ravings  which  expressed  all  they  felt.  More 
phlegmatic  British  victims  laid  hearts,  and  all 
they  had  of  fortunes,  at  her  feet,  and  meant 
more  than  they  could  say.  She  was  as  often 
in  Philadelphia  as  in  Wilmington  and  Dover, 
and  her  conquests  there  were  as  notable.  When 
Philadelphia  was  evacuated  by  the  British  in 
1778,  a  British  officer  risked  character  and 
life  by  making  a  flying  trip  to  Wilmington, 
without  leave  of  absence  and  under  cover  of 
night,  to  entreat  Miss  Vining  to  reconsider 
her  refusal  of  him.  Luckily,  the  transgression 
was  not  discovered  by  the  authorities,  a  piece 
of  good  fortune   for  which   he    was  probably 


MARY  VININQ. 
(from  old  miniature.) 


335 


Other  "Old  Dover"  Stories      337 

less  grateful  than  he  should  have  been,  being 
driven  from  desperation  to  despair  by  the 
belle's  tranquilly  kind  repetition  of  her  former 
sentence. 

Louis  Philippe,  then  Due  d'  Orleans,  was 
among  her  visitors  and  admirers.  Her  friend- 
ship with  Lafayette,  begun  while  he  was 
Governor  Rodney's  guest,  lasted  while  she 
lived.  They  corresponded  regularly  in  French 
after  his  return  to  France. 

"  Do  you  never  mean  to  marry  ?  "  asked  a 
wondering  acquaintance  after  reckoning  up 
the  offers  Miss  Vining  had  had.  "  Will  you 
never  accept  anybody  ?  "  ,    • 

Mary  Vining  was  frank  with  herself,  if  with 
no  one  else.  Her  reply  was  prompt  and  seri- 
ous, almost  regretful  : 

"Admiration  has  spoiled  me.  I  could  not  con- 
tent myself  with  the  admiration  of  one  man." 

One  of  the  regal  fancies  her  great  wealth 
enabled  her  to  indulge  was  that  of  never  going 
abroad  on  foot.  Another  was  to  wear  a  veil 
whenever  she  appeared  in  the  street  or  at 
church.  Her  costumes,  even  during  the  Revo- 
lutionary blockade,  were  the  marvel  and  envy 
of  women  with  equal  ambitions  and  wealth, 
but  who  lacked  her  taste  and  genius. 


$3%       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

She  was  still  in  the  prime  of  beautiful  wo- 
manhood when  Peace  sent  French  gallants  and 
English  suitors  back  to  their  homes,  and  dis- 
banded her  military  admirers.  Her  Delaware 
drawing-room  remained  a  salon,  herself  a  queen. 
She  was  nearing  her  fortieth  birthday,  still 
handsome,  still  gracious  in  her  imperiousness, 
when  the  Ridgely  family  was  agitated  by  a 
rumour,  at  first  scouted  as  incredible,  then  re- 
ceived shudderingly. 

"  Is  it  true,"  writes  the  widow  of  a  Revolu- 
tionary hero  to.  Mrs.  Dr.  Charles  Ridgely, 
"  that  Miss  Vining  is  engaged  to  General 
Wayne?  Can'  one  so  refined  marry  this 
coarse   soldier  ?     .  True  " — relentingly 

— "  he  is  brave,  wonderfully  brave  !  and  none 
but  the  brave  deserve  the  fair." 

General  Anthony  Wayne  was  now  a  wid- 
ower. Mary  Vining  was  a  child  of  eleven 
when  he,  a  man  of  twenty-two,  married  and 
settled  upon  a  farm  in  Chester  County,  Penn- 
sylvania. She  was  twenty-three  when  the 
storming  of  Stony  Point,  one  mid-July  night 
in  i  779,  fastened  upon  him  the  name  of  "  Mad 
Anthony."  In  hearing  the  daring  exploit  dis- 
cussed by  his  brother  officers  in  her  drawing- 
room,  she  must  have  laughed  over  the    one 


Other  "Old  Dover"  Stories       339 

ban  -  mot  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  trans- 
mitted to  us,  and  which  Mrs.  Banning  revives, 
in  our  recollection  : 

44  Can  you  take  Stony  Point?"  inquired 
Washington  of  the  fiery  brigadier-general. 

"  Storm  Stony  Point,  your  Excellency  !  I  '11 
storm  hell  if  you  7/  plan  the  attack  !  " 

11  Had  n't  we  better  try  Stony  Point  first, 
General  Wayne  ? "  was  the  dryly  facetious 
retort. 

Mary  Vining  would  have  enjoyed  that. 
There  was  a  decided  admixture  of  shrewd 
common  sense  in  her  composition,  despite  her 
sybaritic  tastes  and  habits. 

The  one  letter  from  her  hand  alluded  to 
just  now,  was  written  to  a  cousin  just  after 
Chief-Justice  Vining's  death,  when  the  daugh- 
ter was  fourteen  years  old.  The  grateful 
tenderness  of  the  childish  heart  cannot  be  mis- 
interpreted, but  she  takes  thought  of  the  keys 
of  desk  and  trunks  sent  by  him  in  "  Uncle 
Wynkoop's  letter  to  Uncle  Ridgely,"  also, 
that  "  among  them  is  the  key  of  Mrs.  Nixon's 
trunk,  and  in  that  you  will  find  a  canister  of 
very  good  green  tea,  which  you  will  please  to 
use  when  Mr.  Chew  is  down." 

Tea  was    already  an  expensive    luxury,  al- 


34°       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

though  the  letter  antedates  the  Boston  Tea 
Party  and  the  burning  of  the  Peggy  Stewart  at 
Annapolis  by  three  years.  Mr.  Chew  was  an 
honoured  guest,  for  whom  the  best  was  none 
too  good. 

"  Mad  Anthony"  was  made  General-in- 
Chief  of  the  United  States  Army  in  1792.  It 
is  supposed  that  he  paid  his  addresses  first  to 
Miss  Vining  in  1794.  He  had  been  in  a  dozen 
pitched  battles,  always  serving  with  valour  and 
distinction.  His  address,  in  suppressing  the 
mutiny  of  the  Pennsylvania  troops  in  1781, 
and  his  clear  counsels  as  a  member  of  the 
Philadelphia  Legislature,  proved  that  he  had 
sense  as  well  as  valour.  By  a  dashing  bayo- 
net charge  at  Green  Spring,  Virginia,  he  had 
saved  the  liberty,  maybe  the  life,  of  the  well- 
beloved  Lafayette.  Miss  Vining  understood 
him  and  her  own  heart  so  much  better  than 
her  critics  could  know  either,  that  she  not 
only  promised  to  marry  the  "  coarse  soldier," 
but  loved  him  ardently  and  proudly. 

They  were  betrothed,  and  the  wedding-day 
was  set,  when  General  Wayne  set  out  late  in 
1795,  or  early  in  1796,  to  conclude  the  treaty 
of  Greenville  with  the  Western  Indians,  whom 
he  had  defeated  at  Maumee  Rapids  the  year 


Other  "Old  Dover"  Stories      341 

before.  It  was  a  long  journey,  and  the  nego- 
tiations were  tedious.  In  the  civilised  Dela- 
ware he  had  left  preparations  went  on  briskly 
for  the  marriage,  which  was  to  take  place 
immediately    upon    his    return.     Miss   Vining 


RIDQELY  FAMILY  SILVER. 


bought  a  complete  service  of  silver,  and  re- 
furnished  her  already  handsome  home.  Be- 
fore leaving  her,  the  bridegroom-expectant  had 
given  her  a  set  of  India  china,  which  is  still  in 
the  Ridgely  family  at  Dover.  It  was  never 
used  in  the  long  lifetime  of  Mary  Vining,  but 
treasured  among  her  most  sacred  belongings. 


342       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

The  warrior  betrothed  never  returned  from 
his  long  journey  and  tedious  errand.  Mary 
Vining's  New  Years  gift  was  the  news  that 
he  had  died,  December  15,  1796,  at  Presque 
Isle,  on  Lake  Erie,  on  his  way  home,  his  ne- 
gotiations satisfactorily  completed,  his  heart 
full  of  hopes  of  happiness  and  her. 

Mrs.  Charles  Ridgely  wrote  to  the  corre- 
spondent who  had  been  shocked  at  the  news 
of  the  projected  marriage  : 

"  Miss  Vining  has  put  on  mourning  and  re- 
tired from  the  world,  in  consequence  of  Gen- 
eral Wayne's  death." 

Mrs.  Banning  adds  that  "  Miss  Vining 
seems  to  have  deeply  mourned  General  Wayne's 
death.  She  lived  for  twenty-five  years  longer, 
but  never  again  entered  society." 

This  romance  in  real  life,  all  unexpected  to 
us,  the  admirers  of  the  intrepid,  dashing  soldier, 
never  named  without  the  amused  repetition  of 
his  sobriquet — was  followed  by  other  disas- 
ters. The  "  Pet  of  Delaware"  lost  his  sister's 
fortune  with  his  own.  The  delicately  nurtured 
woman  was  compelled  to  sell  her  chariot, 
horses,  servants,  and  home.  A  suburban  cot- 
tage left  to  her  by  her  mother,  and  a  scanty 
pittance  for  daily  needs,  were  all  that  remained 


Other  "Old  Dover"  Stories      343 

when  the  death  of  the  brother  she  had  idolised 
revealed  the  wreck  he  had  made  of  their 
means. 

To  quote  again  from  Mrs,  Banning : 

"  To  the  north  of  the  eastern  yard  in  which  two  huge 
willows  grew,  arose  a  blank  brick  wall  that  added  to  the 
convent-like  seclusion  of  the  shaded  cottage.  It  be- 
came, indeed,  her  living  tomb.  The  loss  of  all  that 
made  life  dear  broke  her  proud,  ambitious  heart.  She 
only  sought  concealment,  like  a  wounded  deer,  till  she 
could  die." 

This  was  in  1802.  In  1806,  the  thorough- 
bred had  rallied  her  forces  to  care  for  her 
brother's  orphaned  boys,  four  in  number.  To 
maintain  and  educate  them  the  deposed  queen 
took  boarders,  "  hesitating  at  no  sacrifice  to 
benefit  them,  and  devoting  her  time  and  talents 
to  their  education." 

From  the  eldest  of  these  beneficiaries,  then 
a  lad  of  fourteen,  we  have  a  rhyming  descrip- 
tion of  the  Lady  of  "  The  Willows,"  as  she 
had  called  her  cottage,  which  is  creditable  to 
his  head  and  heart : 

"  Lady  Vining  comes  first,  with  her  soul-piercing  eye, 
Let  her  look  in  your  face,  in  your  heart  she  will  pry. 
In  her  features  sits  high  the  expression  of  truth, 
The  wisdom  of  age  and  the  fancy  of  youth. 


344       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

They  say  a  bright  circle  her  figure  once  graced, 

The  mirror  of  fashion  and  Phoenix  of  taste  ; 

But  Religion  soon  whispered  't  were  better  to  dwell 

In  the  willow's  retreat,  or  hermitage  cell. 

Now,  apart  from  the  world  and  its  turbulent  billows, 

Contentment  she  courts  in  the  shade  of  The  Willows." 

Miss  Vining's  last  visit  to  Philadelphia,  the 
scene  of  her  proudest  conquests,  was  made  in 
1809,  upon  business  connected  with  the  pla- 
cing of  this  nephew  with  his  maternal  aunt, 
Mrs.  Ogden,  of  New  York.  She  went  to  the 
city  by  the  urgent  invitation  of  Caesar  Augustus 
Rodney,  "the  Signer's"  nephew  and  heir, 
in  his  carriage,  and  under  his  escort,  remain- 
ing for  a  fortnight  in  his  house.  She  received 
the  many  faithful  friends  who  hastened  to  pay 
their  respects  to  her,  conversing  with  the  old 
winning  grace  and  ease,  but  entered  no  other 
house  than  Mr.  Rodney's. 

"  The  Willows "  became  more  and  more 
like  a  conventual  retreat  as  the  years  went  by. 
When  the  mistress  went  to  church, — which  was 
seldom  toward  the  end  of  her  life, — she  wore 
the  muffling  cap  with  wide  borders,  assumed 
after  General  Wayne's  death,  and  never  laid 
aside  or  changed  in  fashion  ;  over  this  a  pro- 
jecting bonnet  or  "  calash."     As  face  and  form 


Other  "Old  Dover"  Stories       345 

lost  delicacy  and  beauty,  she  saw  the  few 
visitors  admitted  to  "  The  Willows  "  in  a  room 
where  the  shutters  were  bowed,  and  the  cur- 
tains drawn. 

"  But  her  elegance  of  conversation,  attractive  man- 
ners, and  musical  voice  remained  to  the  last,  also  her 
fine  grey  eyes.  She  had  an  abundance  of  brown  hair 
that  never  turned  grey.  When  the  concealing  cap  was 
removed  after  her  death,  a  high  white  forehead,  and 
very  smooth,  was  revealed."  1 

Of  her  four  adopted  children,  her  solace  in 
poverty  and  widowhood,  three  died  in  early 
life,  of  consumption  ;  the  eldest  outliving  her 
by  a  year. 

Mary  Vining  died  in  182 1.  During  the  last 
years  of  her  life,  she  had  busied  herself  in 
writing  the  History  of  the  Revolutionary  War. 
The  unfinished  MS.,  with  other  valuable 
papers,  was  destroyed  by  fire  several  years 
afterward. 

1  American  Historical  Register. 


s^avwdnew 


XII 

BELMONT  HALL, 
NEAR  SMYRNA,  DELAWARE 

WITHOUT  disparagement  to  other 
broods  of  the  "  Blue  Hen's  Chickens," 
we  must  admit  that  those  sent  out  for  public 
service  from  Kent  County  were  of  a  game 
strain.  Not  fewer  than  sixteen  Governors  of 
Delaware  were  born  in  Kent,  or  were  residents 
of  the  Peninsular  County  when  elected  to 
office.  The  long  line  began  with  Caesar  Rod- 
ney who,  in  1778,  was  made  "  President  of  the 
Delaware  State,"  for  the  then  constitutional 
term  of  three  years. 

Another  President  was  John  Cook,  a  man  of 
wealth  and  influence  in  the  Province.  He 
came  into  office  in  1783.  In  1772,  he  had 
been  High  Sheriff  of  Kent  County.  He 
afterwards   became    a    member    of    the    first 

346 


Belmont  Hall  347 

Assembly  of  the  State  in  1776,  and  of  the 
committee  appointed  in  October  of  the  same 
year  to  devise  the  Great  Seal  of  Delaware. 
He  also  served  as  a  soldier  throughout  the 
Revolutionary  War,  after  which  he  was  one 
of  the  Judges  of  the  State.  His  landed  es- 
tate in  and  about  the  town  of  Smyrna  in- 
cluded the  extensive  tract  of  arable  and  wooded 
land  upon  which  now  stands  the  fine  old 
homestead  of  Belmont  Hall. 

The  original  grant  of  several  thousand  acres 
was  made  to  an  Englishman  from  whom  it 
took  the  name  of  "  Pearman's  Choice."  A 
house  stood  upon  the  site  of  the  Hall  late  in 
the  seventeenth  century.  The  next  proprie- 
tor after  Governor  Cook  was  Moore,  another 
Englishman,  who  erected  the  rear  and  lower 
wing  of  the  house,  as  we  now  see  it. 

The  body  of  the  Hall  was  added  by  Thomas 
Collins,  the  third  Governor,  or  President, 
given  by  Kent  County  to  Delaware.  He  was 
a  brother-in-law  of  John  Cook,  and,  like  him, 
the  owner  of  much  valuable  farming  land  in 
the  lower  part  of  the  State.  He  bought  the 
Belmont  Hall  tract  from  Moore  in  1771,  and 
enlarged  the  dwelling  to  its  present  propor- 
tions in  1773.     When  hostilities  between  the 


348       More  Colonial  Homesteads 


Colonies  and  Great  Britain  broke  out,  he  gar- 
risoned the  Hall  and  stockaded  the  grounds 
outlying  it,  raising,  by  his  personal  efforts,  a 
brigade  of  militia  from  the  surrounding  country 
and  maintaining  it  at  his  own  expense  while 
the  war  lasted.  In  addition  to  his  duties  as  a 
military  officer  he  was  a  member  of  the 
Council  of  Safety,  subsequently,  a  delegate  to 
the  Convention  that  drafted  the  Constitution 
of  the  State,  and  Chief  Justice  of  the  Court  of 

Common  Pleas. 

"  Belmont  Hall" 
— we  learn  from  a 
family  MS.— 

"descended  to  Dr. 
William  Collins  by  the 
will  of  his  father,  Gov- 
ernor Thomas  Collins, 
in  1789,  and  was  sold 
by  Dr.  Collins  to  John 
Cloke,  Esq.,  in  1827. 
He,  in  turn,  left  it  to 
his  daughter,  Mrs. 
Caroline  E.  Cloke  Pet- 
erson, then  the  wife  of 
J.  Howard  Peterson,  Esq.,  of  Philadelphia.  Mr.  Peter- 
son died  in  1875.  Several  years  later  Mrs.  Peterson 
married  again,  but  is  still  the  owner  of  Belmont  Hall, 
and  the  plantation  connected  with  it," 


COOK-PETERSON  COAT  OF  ARMS. 


Belmont  Hall  349 

The  historic  mansion  is  one  of  the  oldest,  if 
not  the  most  ancient,  private  house  in  a  State 
where  Colonial  architecture  and  old  families 
abound.  Two  pictures  of  it  hang  in  the 
Relic  Room  of  Independence  Hall,  Philadel- 
phia. One  of  the  frames  contains,  in  addi- 
tion to  this  picture,  a  Continental  specie  note 
made  into  currency  by  the  signature  of  War- 
Governor  Thomas  Collins,  in  1776.  The 
bricks  of  the  Hall  are  said  to  have  been 
brought  from  England.  They  are  as  hard  as 
flint,  and  rich  brown  in  color.  Nails,  hinges, 
door-knobs,  and  bolts  were  imported  expressly 
for  this  dwelling  and  bear  the  imprint  of  the 
British  stamp. 

The  facade  of  the  Hall  is  imposing,  and  the 
effect  of  the  whole  building,  set  in  the  centre 
of  a  park  and  gardens  twenty  acres  in  extent, 
and  quite  removed  from  the  highway,  is  noble 
and  dignified.  One  of  the  most  beautiful 
views  of  the  house  is  to  be  had  from  the 
garden  behind  it,  where  a  low  terrace  falls 
away  from  the  ornamental  grounds  to  the 
level  of  the  surrounding  fields.  The  stroller 
in  the  winding  alleys,  looking  up  suddenly  at 
the  ivied  gables  of  the  oldest  part  of  the  Hall, 
framed  in  the  broad  arch  of  the  arbour  at  the 


35°       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

top  of  the  terrace  steps,  fancies  himself,  for  one 
bewildered  instant,  in  the  Old  World,  in  the 
near  neighbourhood  of  grange  or  priory,  the 
age  of  which  is  measured  by  centuries,  and  not 
by  decades.  The  illusion  is  borne  out  by 
patriarchal  trees,  knobbed  and  hoary  as  to 
boles,  broad  of  crown,  and  with  a  compactness 
of  foliage  unattainable  by  groves  less  than 
fifty  years  old. 

The  balustrade  enclosing  the  flat  central 
roof  of  the  Hall  was  put  up  by  Colonel  Collins 
to  protect  the  beat  of  the  sentry  kept  for 
months  upon  this  observatory.  The  officers 
of  the  brigade  were  the  guests  of  the  family 
while  the  country  swarmed  with  predatory 
bands  of  British  and  Tories,  with  an  occasional 
sprinkling  of  Hessians.  These  last  were  be- 
lieved by  the  peninsular  population  to  be  ogres 
imported  especially  for  the  destruction  of 
women  and  children,  each  of  the  monsters 
being  equipped  by  nature  with  a  double  row  of 
carnivorous  teeth. 

While  there  was  no  regular  battle  fought  in 
the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  Smyrna,  the 
region  was  reckoned  peculiarly  unsafe  for  the 
reason  I  have  given,  and  skirmishes  were  not  un- 
common.    Colonel  Collins  and  his  home  guard 


Belmont  Hall  353 

were  a  ommittee  of  safety  in  themselves ; 
the  Hall  with  its  solid  wall  and  surrounding 
defences,  was  looked  upon  by  the  fearsome 
families  left  unprotected  while  husbands,  sons, 
and  fathers  were  in  active  service  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, New  York,  New  Jersey,  or  Virginia,  as 
a  strong  tower,  into  which  they  might  run  and 
be  safe  in  case  of  peril  to  their  persons  or  lives. 
The  conformation  of  the  peninsula,  a  signal 
advantage  when  commerce,  and  not  war,  was 
the  business  of  the  inhabitants,  trebled  the 
present  dangers.  "  The  extensive  water-front 
was  a  constant  invitation  to  attacks,  and  em- 
boldened British  emissaries  and  sympathisers. 
British  vessels  patrolled  Delaware  Bay,  hold- 
ing frequent  communication  with  the  shore, 
landing  at  night,  and  causing  terror  to  the 
inhabitants." 

How  imminent  were  the  perils  of  the  situa- 
tion, and  how  needful  the  precautions  taken 
by  Colonel  Collins,  were  illustrated  by  an  in- 
cident which,  thenceforward,  invested  the  look- 
out upon  the  housetop  with  tragic  interest.  A 
stray  marauder — Tory  spy,  British  scout,  or  a 
freebooter  from  the  coast  bent  upon  mischief 
of  whatever   kind — ventured  near  enough  to 

the  fortified  homestead  one  night  to  pick  off 
23 


354       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

the  sentinel  by  a  well-aimed  rifle-ball.  The 
wounded  man,  alone  on  his  beat,  and  unable 
to  summon  aid,  contrived  to  drag  himself  down 
the  narrow  staircase  to  a  room  below,  occupied 
by  some  of  his  comrades,  sleeping  quietly,  un- 
conscious of  what  was  passing  over  their  heads. 
He  died  there,  within  the  hour,  before  a  sur- 
geon could  reach  him,  lying  in  a  spreading 
pool  of  his  own  blood.  The  awful  stain  is 
upon  the  boards  still,  a  memorial  to  this  one 
of  the  host,  which  no  man  can  number,  of 
unknown  private  soldiers  who  poured  out 
their  lives  like  water  to  secure  to  the  land 
they  loved 

"  A  Church  without  a  Bishop, 
And  a  State  without  a  King." 

Following  the  trail,  faint  but  visible,  left  by 
the  unknown's  life-blood  upon  the  stairs,  we 
mount  to  the  roof,  and  view  the  goodly  pano- 
rama of  teeming  fields  and  vineyards,  peaceful 
hills,  beautiful  homes,  and  shining  river,  and 
hope  that  they  know  what  they  conveyed  to 
us  under  so  many,  and  such  precious,  seals. 

In  1777,  the  State  Council  of  Delaware  met 
in  Belmont  Hall  by  special  invitation  of  the 
owner,   probably   because  it  was  a  safer  place 


:<  -at  » 


VISTA  FROM  PORCH  OF  BELMONT  HALL, 


355 


Belmont  Hall  357 

than  that  in  which  the  Council  usually  sat. 
Colonel  Collins  was  himself  recalled  from  the 
army  under  Washington  by  a  special  letter 
from  the  Speaker,  or  President  of  the  Coun- 
cil, "  requiring  his  attendance,  if  consistent 
with  the  service  he  owed  to  his  chief." 

No  part  of  the  State  accessible  by  water  was 
secure  from  alarms  of  invasion.  In  August, 
Thomas  McKean,  then  executing  the  duties  of 
the  President  of  Delaware,  complained  that  he 
was  "  hunted  like  a  fox."  Five  times  in  four 
months  he  removed  his  wife  and  children  from 
one  refuge  to  another,  finally  hiding  them  in 
a  secluded  log  cabin  in  Pennsylvania,  a  hun- 
dred miles  from  Dover.  This  asylum  was  soon 
deserted  for  fear  of  Indians  and  Tories. 

George  Read  was  probably  President  of  the 
Council  when  it  was  hospitably  entertained  in 
the  garrisoned  Hall.  Richard  Bassett,  a  fut- 
ure Governor  of  Delaware  and  Chief-Justice 
of  the  State,  was  also  summoned  from  the 
army  to  take  his  seat  in  the  Council. 

In  the  room  where  the  unfortunate  sentinel 
died  there  hung,  for  many  years,  a  framed  au- 
tograph letter  from  General  Washington  to 
Colonel  Collins,  ordering  him  to  report  with 
his  brigade  at  Morristown,  for  immediate  serv- 


358       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

ice.  This  valuable  relic  was  lent  to  a  relat- 
ive, and  while  in  his  keeping  was  accidentally 
destroyed  by  fire. 

Mrs.  Peterson-Speakman,  the  great-grand- 
daughter of  Governor  John  Cook,  is  in  pos- 
session of  another  autograph  despatch  from  the 
same  august  hand,  bearing  date  of  the  same 
year.  The  fate  of  the  infant  government  was 
wavering  in  the  balance  that  winter,  and,  judg- 
ing from  the  tone  of  the  epistle,  the  temper  of 
the  Commander-in-Chief  was  "  on  the  move." 

A  second  perusal  engenders  the  shrewd  sus- 
picion that  this  was  an  open  letter,  meant  for 
the  men,  and  not  for  their  colonel.  Recalling 
the  personal  relations  of  the  two  men,  we  are 
furthermore  persuaded  that  Colonel  Collins 
comprehended  the  meaning  of  each  biting  line, 
if  he  were  not  in  the  secret  of  the  composition. 
Caesar  Rodney  did  not  scruple  to  say  to  his 
Excellency,  when  urged  to  bring  his  men  to 
the  front,  "  He  that  can  deal  with  militia  may 
almost  venture  to  deal  with  the  devil."  Colo- 
nel Collins  had  his  militia  and  his  experience. 
He  had,  also,  the  ear  of- the  General-in-Chief. 

u  "  Headquarters,  January  21st,  1777- 

"  To  my  great  surprise  I  was  applied  to  this  morning  to 
discharge  your  Battalion.     If  I  am  not  mistaken  it  came 


Belmont  Hall  359 

in  on  Sunday  last,  and  it  is  not  possible  that  a  single 
man  among  them  can  wish  to  return  before  they  have 
earned  a  single  shilling.  Your  people  cannot  wish  to 
burden  the  public,  and  they  will  do  so,  by  asking  pay 
without  deserving  any.  What  service  have  they  been 
of  ?  None — unless  marching  from  home,  when  they  had 
nothing  to  do,  and  staying  four  weeks  on  the  way  can  be 
called  service.  If  they  would  consider  how  ridiculous 
they  will  appear  when  they  return  without  staying  a  week 
with  me,  they  would  continue  here.  This  is  probably 
the  only  time  they  will  be  needed  to  maintain  our  ground 
till  the  new  army  is  raised.  For  this  purpose  I  hope 
they  left  home  and  surely  they  cannot  think  of  deserting 
me  at  so  important  a  time.  At  any  rate,  their  time  of 
service  cannot  commence  till  they  were  equipped  and 
ready  to  take  the  field.  Dating  it  from  thence  they 
ought  to  stay  six  weeks  after  they  marched  from  Phila- 
delphia. Please  mention  these  things  to  your  Battalion. 
If  they  will  not  stay,  tell  them  I  cannot  in  justice  to  the 
States  give  them  a  discharge,  and  moreover,  that  I  will 
not  suffer  them  to  draw  pay  for  the  time  they  have  stayed. 
This  measure  being  extremely  disagreeable  to  me,  I  en- 
treat you  to  use  your  utmost  influence  to  prevail  on  your 
men  to  stay.  They  may  render  special  service  to  their 
country  in  a  short  time,  and  justly  claim  the  honour  of 
saving  it.  On  the  contrary,  should  they  go  home,  they 
will  not  only  lose  their  pay,  but  remain  the  scoff  of  all 
their  worthy  neighbours. 
11 1  am,  Sir 

"  Your  most  obediently  humble  servant 

"  George  Washington." 


360       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

The  original  of  the  testy  epistle  was  un- 
earthed from  a  mass  of  other  papers  in  the 
attic  of  Belmont  Hall  less  than  fifty  years  ago, 
by  John  Cloke,  Esq.,  the  then  owner  of  the 
homestead,  and  a  copy  of  it  sent  to  Washington 
Irving.  Mr.  Irving's  note  of  acknowledgment 
is  courteous  and  characteristic  : 

"  SUNNYSIDE,  August  27,   1855. 

"  Dear  Sir  : 

"  I  feel  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  the  copy  of  a 
letter  of  General  Washington's  which  you  have  had  the 
kindness  to  send  me. 

"  By  the  date  it  must  have  been  written  from  his  Head- 
quarters at  Morristown  at  a  time  when  he  apprehended 
a  push  from  the  enemy,  and  could  not  afford  to  dis- 
charge a  Battalion.  But  five  days  previous  to  the  date 
of  this  letter,  he  [General  Washington]  wrote  to  the 
President  of  Congress — '  Reinforcements  come  up  so 
exceedingly  slow  that  I  am  afraid  I  shall  be  left  without 
any  men  before  they  arrive.  The  enemy  must  be  ignor- 
ant of  our  numbers  or  they  have  not  horses  to  move 
their  artillery,  or  they  would  not  suffer  us  to  remain 
undisturbed.' 

"  Washington   might  well  say   that  troops  that  could 
wish  to  abandon  him  and  return  home  at  such  a  moment 
would  remain  the  scoff  of  all  their  worthy  neighbours. 
"  Very  respectfully,  your  obliged  and  obedient  servant, 

"  Washington  Irving." 

The  patriotic  Delawarean  and  Daughter  of 
the  American   Revolution  to  whom  I  am  in- 


Belmont  Hall  361 

debted  for  this  valuable  contribution  to  my 
story  of  Belmont  Hall,  subjoins  with  emphasis 
that  is  even  passionate  : 

"  Now  be  it  known  and  inscribed  to  the  honour  and 
glory  of  these  men,  and  of  this  State  of  Delaware,  that 
they  did  stay  all  through  that  winter,  and  that  Delaware 
history  records  the  fact  that  Brigadier-General  Collins 
led  his  native  militia  to  Morristown,  in  the  winter  of 
1777,  and  then  and  there  saw  active  service,  enduring 
all  the  hardships  of  that  memorable  campaign." 

A  list  of  authorities  in  support  of  the  vindi- 
cation follows. 

History  records  a  narrow  escape  from  utter 
spoliation  which  the  garden  county  of  Dela- 
ware had  in  1781.  Arnold  was  fitting  out  the 
expedition  that  was  to  carry  fire  and  sword  up 
the  Rappahannock  and  the  James,  and  the 
wildest  apprehensions  were  entertained  of  his 
taking  the  eastern  coast  of  Delaware  en  route. 
In  a  sort  of  panic  Congress  "  actually  decided 
that  the  only  measure  of  prevention  was  to 
denude  the  region  in  question  of  all  its  live 
stock,  provisions,  and  supplies,  and  starve  the 
inhabitants,  in  order  to  deprive  the  enemy  of 
support  in  case  they  should  decide  to  land." 

A  cavalry  regiment  was  detailed  to  carry 
out  the  ruthless  order,  and  was  about  to  march 


362       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

when  Caesar  Rodney  made  another  hurried 
visit  to  Philadelphia,  and  by  his  determined 
resistance  to  the  vandalistic  decree,  saved  his 
home  and  neighbourhood. 

Colonel  Thomas  Collins  was  Governor 
(President)  of  Delaware  in  1781,  when  her 
deputies,  in  solemn  convention,  ratified  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States.  To  the 
wisest  statesmen  of  the  infant  Republic  she 
seemed  to  have  passed  through  the  dangers  of 
birth  only  to  incur  the  equal  risk  of  strangula- 
tion in  her  cradle. 

"  The  Constitution,  or  disunion,  are  before 
us  to  choose  from,"  said  Washington.  "  The 
political  concerns  of  the  country  are  suspended 
by  a  single  thread." 

General  Collins,  the  loyal  executive  of  a 
loyal  State,  spoke  out  boldly  : 

"  The  new  Constitution  involves  in  its  adop- 
tion, not  only  our  prosperity  and  felicity,  but, 
perhaps,  our  national  existence." 

Senator  Bayard  might  well  ask  ; 

"  May  not  we  of  Delaware,  descendants  of 
the  Blue  Hen's  Chickens  of  the  Revolution, 
afford  to  smile  at  sneer  or  jest  at  our  scanty 
area  and  population,  and  say — '  Our  best  crop 
is  Men!  men  like  Caesar  Rodney'?" 


Belmont  Hall  363 

He  might  have  added — "  Men  like  McKean, 
Cook,  Collins,  Robinson,  Sykes,  Clark,  Bas- 
sett,  Clayton  " — and  a  score  of  others,  includ- 
ing those  of  his  own  illustrious  line,  now,  as  of 
yore,  sans  peur  et  sans  reproche. 

Governor  Thomas  Collins  was  succeeded 
in  the  ownership  of  Belmont  Hall  by  his  son, 
Dr.  William  Collins.  In  1827,  it  passed  into 
the  hands  of  John  Cloke,  Esq.,  the  father  of 
the  present  mistress  of  the  homestead,  Mrs. 
Caroline  Elizabeth  Cloke  Speakman.  Each 
one  of  this  lady's  names  is  a  link  in  the  history 
of  the  old  Hall  in  which  she  was  born  and 
where  she  has  lived  her  busy,  beneficent  life. 

Her  ancestor,  John  Cloke,  emigrated  to 
America  in  the  1  7th  century. 

His  son,  Ebenezer  Cloke,  married  Elizabeth 
Cook,  the  daughter  of  the  Governor  John 
Cook  of  whom  honourable  mention  was  made 
in  the  opening  paragraphs  of  this  chapter. 
His  wife  was  a  sister  of  Thomas  Collins,  and 
a  daughter  married  Hon.  John  Clark,  another 
Governor  of  their  native  State.  Belmont  Hall 
was  one  of  Elizabeth  Cook's  early  homes.  A 
vivid  scene,  pictured  for  us  by  the  traditions 
of  the  place  and  time,  is  of  the  young  wife  of 
Ebenezer  Cloke,  sitting  by  the  tiled  fireplace 


364       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

in  the  parlour,  assisting  her  aunt,  her  cousins, 
and  other  patriotic  women  to  mould  bullets, 
while  armed  men  bivouacked  upon  the  lawn, 
and  the  sentinel  trod  his  lonely  round  upon 
the  balustraded  roof.  She  had  her  own  pecul- 
iar martyrdom  to  the  righteous  Cause.  Her 
husband,  Ebenezer  Cloke,  fitted  out  a  priva- 
teer at  his  own  charges,  and  commanded  her 
in  person  in  coast  cruises  against  the  enemy. 
In  one  of  these  he  was  captured  with  his 
vessel  and  consigned  to  a  prison-ship. 

"  Here,"  says  a  chronicler,  "  overtures  of  release  were 
daily  made  to  him  and  the  other  prisoners,  provided 
they  would  take  sides  with  Great  Britain  against  the 
Colonies  ;  but  he  resisted  this  bribe  of  a  dishonourable 
freedom,  and  with  liberty  in  reach,  did  he  but  choose  to 
grasp  it,  he  languished  and  died  of  ship-fever,  a  worthy 
patriot  to  the  last."  ' 

The  tale,  as  sad  as  it  is  brief,  is  the  dark 
curtain  against  which  is  cast  for  us  the  fig- 
ure of  the  bullet-moulder,  lighted  by  the  red 
shine  of  the  fire.  Prayers  and  tears  went 
into  the  shaping  of  the  missiles  that  were  to 
defend  the  Cause  which  had  cost  her  young 
husband  liberty  and  life ;  tears  for  what  she 

1  Rev.  G.  W  Dame,  D.D.  Address  delivered  upon  the  organisa- 
tion of  Elizabeth  Cook  Chapter.     Belmont  Hall,  i8q6. 


Belmont  Hall  367 

had  lost,  prayers  that  the  sacrifice  might  not 
be  in  vain. 

There  is  fine  poetic  compensation  in  the 
facts  that  her  son  became  the  master  of  the 
estate  her  father  had  once  owned ;  that  the 
Chapter  of  the  Daughters  of  the  American 
Revolution  organised  beneath  the  ancient  roof 
should  receive  her  blessed  name,  and  that  the 
granddaughter  who  proudly  bears  the  same 
should  be  the  honoured  Regent  of  the  Chapter. 

A  blood-relative  and  dear  friend  of  Eliza- 
beth Cook  Cloke  was  Eve  Lear,  the  niece 
of  Dr.  Tobias  Lear,  Washington's  confiden- 
tial secretary,  who  attended  him  in  his  last 
illness. 

"  It  is  recorded  of  her,"  says  Dr.  Dame, 
"  that  she  gave  her  entire  fortune  in  gold  to 
feed  and  clothe  the  soldiers  at  Valley  Forge." 

I  had  expected,  before  coming  to  Belmont 
Hall,  to  find  it  redolent  of  such  hallowed 
memories  as  a  potpourri  of  rose-gardens  and 
sunny  bygones.  My  anticipations  are  more 
than  fulfilled  in  the  cherished  relics  with  which 
it  is  stored.  In  the  "  winter  kitchen"  in  the 
oldest  wing  yawns  the  cavernous  fireplace 
where  were  roasted  mighty  barons  of  beef  for 
the  officers  of  the  Collins   Brigade  ;  and  sav- 


368       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

ory  pastries  and  delicate  cates  were  baked, 
and  wines  were  mulled,  according  to  Mistress 
Collins's  choicest  recipes,  for  the  grave  and 
reverend  Councillors  who  must  be  braced  in 
body  if  they  would  be  stout  of  spirit  when  the 
matter  before  their  worships  was  the  resistance 
of  a  few  and  simple  folk  to  the  most  powerful 
government  upon  earth. 

We  are  assured  in  our  own  minds,  although 
unconfirmed  by  history,  that  it  was  here,  on 
winter  nights,  when  the  bewigged  and  beruffled 
Councillors  occupied  the  parlour  and  dining- 
room,  that  bravely  patient  Elizabeth  .Cloke — 
and  why  not  Eve  Lear? — melted  lead,  and 
manipulated  the  clumsy  moulds,  and  talked 
of  the  beloved  of  their  blood  and  hearts,  war- 
ring for  freedom  upon  land  and  sea.  Eben- 
ezer  Cloke's  writing-desk,  upon  which  his  wife 
may  have  written  her  letters  to  him  while  he 
was  off  upon  his  cruise,  is  in  the  dining-room. 
There  were  no  banks  then — or  none  accessi- 
ble to  provincial  rebels.  Mr.  Cloke  kept  his 
money  in  the  double  row  of  secret  drawers 
unlike  any  others  we  have  ever  explored. 
The  big  spinning-wheel  near  by  whirled  all 
day  long  for  months  together,  spinning  yarn 
to  be  woven  into    cloth    for    uniforming  the 


Belmont  Hall  369 

Collins  Brigade.  I  am  allowed  to  handle  the 
old  flint-lock  musket  that  was  used  by  John 
Cook,  "  soldier,  legislator,  judge,  senator,  and 
president "  ;  the  two  antique  chairs  on  each 
side  of  the  drawing-room  hearth  were  passed 
down  in  the  Collins  family  as  mementoes  of 
the  period  when  Belmont  Hall,  "  in  addition 
to  its  other  memories,  posed  as  one  of  the 
State  capitals."  They  were  part  of  the  fur- 
niture of  the  room  used  as  a  legislative  cham- 
ber in  1777.  Caesar  Rodney  may  have  sat  in 
one,  or  Thomas  McKean,  or  the  warlike  lord 
of  the  manor,  recalled  from  the  field  to  open 
his  hospitable  doors  to  the  Council. 

The  fireplace  is  set  with  blue  and  white  tiles 
of  the  time  of  William  and  Mary.  They  are 
unchanged  from  the  days  "when,  in  front  of 
the  chimney,  Governor  Collins  wrote  his  mes- 
sages and  planned  with  his  officers  his  cam- 
paigns against  the  British." 

About  the  antiquated  spinet,  which  has 
stood  for  over  fifty  years  in  the  great  garret, 
troop  and  hover  all  manner  of  fancies,  sweet, 
sad,  and  quaint,  such  as  visited  the  mind  of 
one  who,  many  years  ago,  left  a  page  of  im- 
promptu verse  within  the  case,  above  the 
shattered,  tuneless  wires : 


37°       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

"  In  gown  of  white,  in  sunset  light, 
She  sits  and  plays  upon  her  spinet, 
And  falling  clear  upon  his  ear, 
Come  forth  the  dainty  airs  within  it. 

The  twilight  falls  adown  the  walls, 
Yet  softly  on  her  fair  form  lingers 
A  last  red  glow,  as,  loth  to  go, 
The  sun  leaves  kisses  on  her  fingers. 

They  both  are  gone  !   now  quite  forlorn, 
In  dusty  attic  stands  the  spinet  ; 
And  nought  remains  to  mark  Love's  pains, 
Except  the  airs  she  found  within  it." 

The  tall  clock  on  the  landing  of  the  hand- 
some staircase,  faced  by  the  stately  peacock 
upon  the  railing,  has  mounted  guard  there  for 
a  century.  The  linen  cambric  sheets  under 
which  I  slept  last  night, — as  fine  as  gossamer, 
and  trimmed  with  old  family  lace, — were  a  part 
of  the  bridal  gear  of  Mrs.  John  Cloke,  upon 
her  coming  to  Belmont  Hall  in  1849.  The 
stately  cedars  on  either  side  of  the  front  porch 
were  planted  upon  the  respective  birthdays  of 
her  two  daughters,  and  named  for  them.  The 
vista  leading  from  the  porch  to  the  gate  is  walled 
and  arched  by  the  close  foliage  of  evergreens 
and  deciduous  trees,  where  song-birds  build  and 


STAIRCASE  OF  BELMONT  HALL. 


371 


Belmont  Hall  373 

make  music  from  dawn  to  dusk.  A  mocking- 
bird was  the  precentor  at  the  matinal  service 
to-day.  Wood-doves  are  cooing  —  and  pre- 
sumably building — in  the  dim  greenery,  as  the 
day  marches  towards  noontide.  Box-trees, 
syringas,  roses,  calycanthus,  and  many  varie- 
ties of  honeysuckles  send  up  waves  of  warmed 
incense  when  the  breeze  shakes  them.  The 
extensive  plantations  are  enclosed  by  match- 
less arbor-vitse  hedges. 

I  have  been  graciously  allowed  to  visit  the 
cellars  under-running  the  entire  building — 
erstwhile  filled  to  the  ceiling  with  army  stores 
— and  found  them,  as  I  had  hoped  I  should,  a 
study  and  a  joy.  Cool,  spacious,  clean,  sweet, 
and  in  every  part — walls,  shelves,  cemented 
floor,  the  very  barrels  and  boxes — white  as 
new-fallen  snow.  Our  hostess  is  a  veritable 
Mrs.  Rundle  in  the  matter  of  pickles,  pre- 
serves, and  jellies,  and  this,  too,  is  a  hereditary 
talent. 

Her  beautiful  grounds  are  ever  open  to  the 
well-mannered  public,  not  excepting  Sunday- 
school  picnics.  Delawareans  sustain  the  repu- 
tation for  law-keeping  and  orderliness  won  in 
the  "  Long  time  ago,"  by  never  presuming 
upon  this  large-hearted  hospitality. 


374       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

We  talk  of  "places,"  not  houses;  "planta- 
tions," not  farms,  while  lingering  in  the  vener- 
able peninsula.  Everybody  hereabouts  has 
quotable  ancestors,  and  neighbourhood  gene- 
alogies are  known,  and  may  be  read,  of  all 
men.  Each  farmstead  has  its  legend  ;  every 
old  tree  its  anecdote;  and  none  have  been 
forgotten. 

A  venerable  lady  who  passed  from  earth  in 
1882  did  more  than  can  ever  be  fully  told 
towards  keeping  the  glorious  Past  alive  in 
the  minds  of  this  generation.  The  grounds 
of  "  Woodlawn,"  the  beautiful  family  seat  of 
George  W.  Cummins,  Esq.,  adjoin  those  of  Bel- 
mont Hall.  Mrs.  Anne  Denny,  Mr.  Cummins's 
mother-in-law,  was  born  in  Kent  County,  Del- 
aware, January  1,  1778.  She  was,  therefore,  one 
hundred  and  four. years  old  at  the  time  of  her 
death,  and,  retaining  all  her  faculties  to  the 
last,  was  a  most  valuable  bond  to  the  last 
century.  A  member  of  the  Society  of  Friends, 
the  placidity  of  spirit  and  demeanour  cultivated 
by  them  as  one  of  the  first  of  Christian  graces, 
had  been  brought  by  her  to  perfection  through 
all  these  years  of  aspiration  after  the  highest 
good.  Her  "household's  most  precious  and 
most  highly  cherished  treasure,  the  centre  of 


Belmont  Hall  375 

attraction  and  light  of  the  home,"  as  one  who 
knew  her  long  and  intimately  called  her,  she 
was  the  pride  and  delight  of  the  region  blest 
and  dignified  by  her  abiding. 

"  She  was  older  than  the  Government  under 
which  we  live  "  ; — so  runs  the  loving  tribute  to 
her  memory.  "  Her  childhood  was  spent  in  the 
days  when  our  public  men  were  noted  for  that 
purity  of  life  for  which  she  herself  was  so 
distinguished." 

Mrs.  Denny  was  a  woman  of  fine  intellect, 
keen  perceptions,  and  extensive  observation. 
"  Her  memory  being  clear  as  to  the  events  of 
each  successive  year  that  had  rolled  over  her," 
since  her  early  childhood,  conversation  with 
her  was  like  drawing  directly  from  the  twin 
streams  of  History  and  Tradition. 

A  biographer  writes : 

"  We  may  mention,  as  one  incident  of  her  childhood, 
that  she  and  many  other  children  gathered  in  Wilming- 
ton to  greet  General  Washington,  as  he  passed  through 
to  his  first  Inauguration  as  President  of  the  United 
States.  When  the  great  man  came  opposite  to  her, 
attracted  probably  by  that  sweetness  of  expression 
which  was  always  hers,  he  stooped,  took  her  in  his  arms, 
and  kissed  her." 

Washington   Irving   never    forgot    that    his 


376       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

nurse  had  taken  him  into  a  shop  where  Wash- 
ington was  standing,  and  introduced  her 
charge  to  the  President  as  "a  little  boy  who 
was  named  after  Your  Excellency,"  where- 
upon the  hero  laid  his  hand  upon  the  sunny 
head  and  "  hoped  he  would  grow  up  to  be  a 
good  man." 

The  little  girl  whom  Washington  embraced 
and  kissed  told  the  story  to  her  great-grand- 
children. Caesar  Rodney  was  President  of 
the  Delaware  State  when  she  was  born,  and 
she  outlived  twelve  of  the  fifteen  Governors 
from  Kent  County  who  were  his  successors  in 
office  during  the  century  that  followed.  She 
had  been  a  married  woman  for  two  years  when 
Washington  died  in  1799,  and  was  widowed 
four  years  after  the  war  of  181 2.  Born  amid 
the  thunders  of  the  Revolution,  she  read  three 
other  Declarations  of  War,  issued  by  as  many 
Presidents  of  these  United  States,  and  heard, 
three  times,  the  joy  bells  of  Peace.  She 
marked  the  birth  and  growth  of  inventions  we 
now  receive  as  the  commonest  necessaries  of 
everyday  life, — such  as  steam-transportation, 
the  magnetic  telegraph,  the  telephone,  the 
electric-car,  the  sewing-machine  and  the  type- 
writer.     Upon  these,  and  all  other  subjects  of 


Belmont  Hall 


377 


interest  and  benefit  to  the  human  race,  she 
had  her  opinion,  always  speaking  out  bravely 
for  Right  and  Truth.  Physically  and  mentally 
her  bow  abode  in  strength — and  strangest  of 
all,  when  we  consider  what  the  wear  and  tear  of 
a  century's  joys,  griefs,  and  worries  must  be  to 
brain  and  nerve,  "  None  of  the  family  at  Wood- 
lawn, —  children,  grandchildren,  or  servants 
— e  v  e  r   received 


from  her  a  harsh 

word,    or   an    un- 

kind look." 

I    account  it  a 

privilege    and    a 

f% 

rare    honour   to 

•-*L,\ 

hear  all  this  from 

9ELn  - "  / 

^f\ 

the    lips     of    my 

A 

fW 

f 

hostess  (who  was 

if 

f     1       1  rwf 

her  loving  friend 

m 

/ 

and  nearest  neigh- 

\ 

bour),  while  we  sit 

„ 

under  the  ances- 

*'^k. 

tral  trees  of  Bel- 

\ 


mont  Hall  in  the  ws.  anne  denny. 

1  •  (TAKEN  AT  THE  AGE  OF  101.)      BORN   1778.       DIED  1882. 

summer  seclusion 

of  shade  and  silence.      It  is  a  fit  place  and  time 

for  listening  to  a  letter  read  to  the  accompani- 


37%       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

ment  of  the  weak  wind  playing  with  the  Nor- 
way firs  and  losing  itself  in  the  vista  they 
enclose : 

"  It  seemed  to  me,  then — and  it  is  a  deepened  sense 
now  —  as  if  she  had  been  so  long  at  the  heavenly 
portal  that  she  was  breathing  the  very  atmosphere 
of  the  New  Jerusalem.  As  if  she  had  had  some 
glimpse  of  the  King  in  His  beauty,  and  that,  though 
her  feet  were  on  the  earth,  yet  her  conversation  was  in 
Heaven. 

"Do  you  recollect  the  message  she  gave  me? 

'' '  Tell  my  friends,'  she  said,  'that  I  have  a  beauti- 
ful home  here,  but  that  I  desire  so  to  live  that  I  may  be 
ready  and  willing  to  leave  it  when  the  message  may 
be  sent  to  me.'  " 

This  was  upon  her  one-hundred-and-fourth 
birthday,  when,  as  was  their  custom,  her  most 
intimate  friends,  Mrs.  Peterson  -  Speakman 
among  them,  gathered  at  Woodlawn  to  pay 
their  respects,  offer  congratulations,  and  ex- 
press their  desire  that  the  wonderful  life  might 
be  prolonged  yet  further  into  her  second 
century.  One  of  the  company,  on  taking 
leave,  "  hoped  that  he  might  meet  her  again 
on  the  next  anniversary." 

Her  answer  was  firm  and  sweet;  "I  neither 
expect  nor  desire  it !" 


Belmont  Hall 


379 


In  four  days  more  the  beautiful  link  bind- 
ing- together  three  generations  of  mortal  lives, 
parted  gently.  The  listening  spirit  had  re- 
ceived "  the  message." 


XIII 

THE    LANGDON  AND   WENTWORTH    HOUSES, 
IN  PORTSMOUTH,  NEW  HAMPSHIRE 

IF  geologists  are  trustworthy  sources  of  know- 
ledge, the  stony  spine  of  New  Hampshire 
was  the  first  part  of  our  continent  upheaved 
from  the  primeval  ocean. 

As  if  in  obedience  to  an  occult  law  of  prior- 
ity, the  "  Granite  State  "  has  consistently  pressed 
to  the  front  ever  since  she  took  upon  herself 
the  name  and  the  dignity  of  a  commonwealth. 
The  map  of  her  brief  coast  was  one  of  the 
earliest  charts  made  out  by  the  first  admiral 
of  New  England,  Captain  John  Smith  (in 
1 6 14).  From  the  Portsmouth  Navy-yard,  the 
oldest  in  the  country,  was  launched,  in  1777, 
the  Ranger,  ordered  by  the  Continental  Con- 
gress, which,  under  the  command  of  John 
Paul  Jones,  had  the  distinction  of  being  the 
first  war-vessel  to  hoist  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
and  receive  a  formal  naval  salute. 

380 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses    381 

Stark's  Volunteer  Brigade,  that  helped  to 
win  the  first  decisive  victory  for  the  Americans 
in  the  Revolutionary  War,  was  fitted  out  at 
the  expense  of  John  Langdon  of  Portsmouth, 
and  his  was  the  first  signature  affixed  to  the 
Federal  Constitution  drafted  by  the  Conven- 
tion of  1778. 

Portsmouth,  the  only  seaport  of  the  sturdy 
State,  was  settled  in  1623,  and  was  created  a 
township  in  1653.  In  1890 — just  three  hundred 
years  after  the  launching  of  the  Falkland,  the 
first  war-vessel  built  in  her  docks — she  had  a 
population  of  10,000,  with  an  allowance  of  one 
church  and-an-eighth  for  every  thousand  inhabit- 
ants, and  public-school  property  to  the  amount  of 
$100,000.  All  of  which  shows  oneness  of  spirit 
with  pioneers  who  marched  five  hundred  strong 
to  do  battle  at  Louisburgin  1645,  and  who  fur- 
nished the  same  number  of  soldiers  to  attack 
Crown  Point  in  1755.  Of  a  like  strain  were 
the  12,500  Continental  militia  who  answered 
the  call  of  Congress  during  the  eight  years' 
struggle  for  the  liberty  of  the  Colonies.  Some- 
thing of  the  strength  and  inflexibility  of  the 
Eozoic  period,  to  which  belong  her  everlast- 
ing hills,  would  seem  to  permeate  New  Hamp- 
shire's civic,  religious,  and  moral  institutions. 


382       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Benning  Wentworth  was  made  Governor  of 
the  State  in  1 741.  Most  of  us  are  more  fa- 
miliar with  his  name  than  with  that  of  the  very 
much  better  man  who  was  born  that  same  year. 
History  was  made  of  John  Langdon's  works 
and  warrings.  Poetry  has  made  Benning 
Wentworth's  wooing  and  wedding  famous. 

The  Colonial  parody  of  the  story  of  Lord 
Burleigh  and  the  Village  Maid  is  musically 
rendered  by  Longfellow.  Governor  Benning 
Wentworth  married  Martha  Hilton,  once  a 
servant-girl  at  the  Stavers  Tavern  in  Queen 
( afterward  called  "  Buck,"  now  State)  Street, 
but  since  promoted  to  the  housekeeper's  office 
in  the  Governor's  household.  The  wedding 
feast  was  a  surprise  party,  given  upon  the 
bridegroom's  sixtieth  birthday. 

"  He  had  invited  all  his  friends  and  peers, 
I  he  Pepperills,  the  Langdons,  and  the  Lears, 
The  Sparhawks,  the  Penhallows,  and  the  rest — 
For  why  repeat  the  name- of  every  guest  ?  " 

The  Reverend  Arthur  Brown  hesitating  to  per- 
form the  ceremony,  was  commanded,  in  the 
name  of  the  law,  to  proceed  with  it. 

The  marriage  was  at  Little  Harbour,  the 
gubernatorial  mansion  there  having  been  built 


PARLOUR  OF  WENTWORTH    MANSION,   IN  WHICH  GOV.    3ENNINQ  WENT- 
WORTH  WAS  MARRIED  TO  MARTHA  HILTON 


333 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses   385 

in  1750.  Until  that  time  the  Wentworths 
had  lived  in  what  is  known  as  the  Went- 
worth-Vaughan  Tavern,  on  Manning  Street, 
Portsmouth.  Samuel  Wentworth,  the  grand- 
father of  Governor  Benning,  was  licensed  in 
1690,  "to  entertain  strangers,  and  to  sell  and 
to  brew  beare  as  the  law  allows,"  in  this,  the 
house  he  had  built.  It  is  one  of  the  dozen  or 
more  Colonial  homesteads  in  Portsmouth  that 
repay  the  visitor  to  the  quaint  old  seaport  for 
the  time  and  trouble  the  journey  hither  has 
cost  him. 

The  event  that  gave  us  the  poem  of  Lady 
Wentworth,  is  squeezed  in  the  Parish  Register 
of  St.  John's  Church,  into  a  space  just  one 
inch  square  : 

"Portsmouth,  March  15th,  Benning  Went- 
worth, Gov.,  Martha  Hilton.  '59." 

Another  entry  dated  a  few  months  after  the 
elderly  bridegroom's  death,  shows  that  Lady 
Wentworth  speedily  consoled  herself  for  the 
loss  of  her  Burleigh  by  wedding  his  brother, 
Colonel  Michael  Wentworth  of  His  Majesty's 
service. 

Sir  John  Wentworth,  LL.D.  was  the  uxori- 
ous Benning's  nephew.  He  was,  by  three 
years,  the  senior  of  John  Langdon.     The  boys 


386       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

may  have  fought  together  on  the  village 
green,  and  upon  the  play-ground  attached  to 
worshipful  Major  Hale's  school,  as  they  strug- 
gled in  their  manhood  in  the  arena  of  Colonial 
politics. 

The  Langdon  family  was  one  of  the  oldest 
in  Portsmouth  and  always  conspicuous  in  her 
domestic  and  public  annals.  John,  the  most 
distinguished  citizen  of  town  and  Province, 
was  born  in  1740  or  1741. 

"  His  boyhood  was  unmarked  by  prophecy  or  won- 
ders. He  did  what  other  boys  did ;  trudged  to  the 
Latin  school  kept  by  the  celebrated  Major  Hale,  who 
was  one  of  the  characters  of  his  day,  recited  his  lessons, 
and  left  no  gleaming  legend  for  scholarship.  Langdon 
was  not  a  genius,  and  sound  sense  always  kept  him 
safely  within  bounds."  ' 

John  Wentworth,  the  Governor's  nephew 
was  graduated  at  twenty-two  from  Harvard 
College  ;  at  twenty-eight  (in  1 765),  he  was  sent 
by  the  Provincial  Government  to  England 
upon  a  special  mission.  That  year,  his  titled 
relative,  Charles  Watson  Wentworth,  Marquis 
of  Rockingham,  was  made  Premier  of  Great 
Britain.  He  was  to  become  the  idol  of  a 
fleeting  hour  in  America  on    account    of    his 

1  Charles  R.  Corning,  in  New  England  Magazine,  July  1894. 


GOVERNOR    BENNINQ    WENTWORTH 
387 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses    389 

agency  in  the  repeal   of  the    detested  Stamp 
Act,  and  was  always  popular  in  the  Colonies. 

John  Wentworth  returned  to  Portsmouth  in 
1767  as  "Surveyor  of  the  King's  Woods  in 
America  and  Governor  of  New  Hampshire." 
The  curled  and  perfumed  darling  of  Fortune — 
like  his  uncle  and  predecessor  in  office — 

"Represented  England  and  the  King 
And  was  magnificent  in  everything." 

Longfellow  paints  a  street  scene  in  that 
Old  Portsmouth  for  us  : 

"A  gay 
And  brilliant  equipage  that  flashed  and  spun, 
The  silver  harness  glittering  in  the  sun, 
Outriders  with  red  jackets,  lithe  and  lank, 
Pounding  the  saddles  as  they  rose  and  sank  ; 
While,  all  alone  within  the  chariot,  sat 
A  portly  person  with  three-cornered  hat 
A  crimson  velvet  coat,  head  high  in  air, 
Gold-headed  cane,  and  nicely  powdered  hair, 
And  diamond  buckles,  sparkling  at  his  knees." 

Ah  !  the  world  went  very  well  then  with 
the  future  baronet  in  his  Great  House  at  Little 
Harbour,   "  looking  out  to  sea." 

The  sea  upon  which  John  Langdon,  who 
was  never  to  prefix  or  suffix  a  foreign  title  to 
his  honest  name,  was  then  making  the  fortune 


39°       More  Colonial  Homesteads 


LANQDON  COAT  OF  ARMS 


to  be  staked  upon  the  result  of  the  conflict 
between  his  native  Province  and  the  King 
represented  by  his  former  schoolfellow.  After 
serving    an    apprenticeship    in    a    Portsmouth 

counting-house,  the  man 
without  genius  chose  his 
career.  Money  was  to 
be  made  surely  and 
swiftly  by  trading  di- 
rectly with  the  Indies, 
Africa,  and  Europe. 
John  Langdon  was  one 
who  ever  knew  his  own 
mind  intimately  ;  who 
understood  his  own  purposes  and  abode  by 
them.  He  meant  to  become  rich,  and  that 
Portsmouth  and  New  Hampshire  should  profit 
by  his  prosperity. 

"  Moons  waxed  and  waned  ;  the  lilacs  bloomed  and  died. 
In  the  broad  river  ebbed  and  flowed  the  tide  ; 
Ships  went  to  sea,  and  ships  came  home  from  sea, 
And  the  slow  years  sailed  by,  and  ceased  to  be." 

The  world  was  not  going  so  well  for  Gov- 
ernor Wentworth  when  the  seafarer  decided 
to  leave  off  roving  and  resume  home  and 
mercantile  life.  Fortune's  darling  was  still 
personally  popular  with  his  fellow-citizens,  but 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses    39 T 

the  King  he  represented  was  growing  daily 
more  obnoxious.  The  gallant  fellow  had  done 
his  best,  according  to  the  light  that  was  in  him, 
toward  securing  the  best  interests  of  the  coun- 
try as  dear  to  him  as  to  any  of  the  malcontents. 
He  had  given  a  charter  to  Dartmouth  College, 
rising  superior  to  any  small  partiality  for  his 
own  Alma  Mater  ;  he  was  the  farmer's  friend 
and  zealous  coadjutor,  and,  as  chief  magistrate 
of  the  Colony,  encouraged  immigration  and  de- 
velopment of  all  her  resources.  As  the  direct 
result  of  his  wise  legislation,  New  Hampshire 
had,  by  now,  a  population  of  80,000,  and  was 
growing  rapidly  in  numbers  and  wealth. 

With  indignant  pain  the  Governor  awoke 
to  the  truth  that  has  confounded  many  another 
favourite  of  the  people, — to  wit,  that  the  dullest 
yokel  can  dissociate  men  and  measures  when 
self-interest  is  abraded.  One  and  all  of  those 
who  visited  the  Great  House,  or  bared  their 
heads  as  the  Governor's  chariot  drove  through 
the  streets  of  his  capital  city,  liked  and  ap- 
proved of  him,  and  of  what  he  had  done  in  the 
past  for  town  and  townspeople.  But  resent- 
ments and  resolves  which  were,  in  two  years' 
time,  to  crystallise  into  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, were  as  rife  in  New  Hampshire  as  in 


392       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

her  sister  provinces.  A  long  series  of  wrongs 
and  misread  rights  had  aroused  the  loyal  and 
patient  young  giant  that  now  knew  itself  to  be 
a  nation.  It  was  beyond  the  power  of  any 
individual  to  quiet  the  tempest. 

John  Wentworth,  too,  was  loyal  and  patient. 
Loyal  to  his  sovereign  and  in  love  for  his  fel- 
low-citizens, patient,  to  an  extent  that  awakens 
our  affectionate  and  compassionate  respect, 
with  his  misguided  compatriots.  His  policy 
was  conciliatory  from  the  outset  to  the  bitter 
and  unlooked-for  end.  It  was,  therefore,  a 
heavy  disappointment  and  a  personal  sorrow 
when,  in  the  depth  of  a  December  night,  in 
1774,  a  party,  headed  by  John  Langdon  and 
John  Sullivan — (Major-General  Sullivan  of 
the  Revolutionary  War,  subsequently  Attorney- 
General,  then,  President  of  the  State  of  New 
Hampshire)  surprised  and  overcame  the  little 
garrison  at  Fort  William  and  Mary,  New 
Castle,  securing  the  ordnance  and  ammunition 
for  the  Colonial  army.  The  expedition  was  a 
direct  assault  upon  the  Royal  Government ;  the 
assailants  were  little  better  than  an  infuriated 
mob,  such  as  no  one  who  knew  John  Langdon 
as  a  sober,  law-abiding  citizen  would  have 
expected  him  to   countenance,  much    less   to 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses   393 

organise  and  conduct.  Yet  there  is  no  record  of 
any  effort  at  reprisal  on  the  part  of  the  King's 
representative,  and  nothing  to  show  that  the 
relations  between  him  and  Langdon  were 
strained  by  what  was  a  crime  in  the  eye  of 
established  law. 

On  the  contrary,  the  message  sent  by  Went- 
worth to  the  Provincial  House  of  Representa- 
tives convened  in  Portsmouth,  May  1775,  and 
to  which  John  Langdon  was  a  delegate,  was 
full  of  kindly  and  moderate  counsels.  The 
colonists  were  advised  to  bear  and  forbear  until 
the  unhappy  misunderstandings  were  cleared 
up,  and  exhorted  to  continued  confidence  in 
the  Home  Government  which  had  been  pater- 
nal in  past  kindnesses. 

In  rej}ly,  a  Committee  from  the  House 
waited  upon  the  Governor.  John  Langdon's 
was  among  the  serious  visages  that  met  Went- 
worth's  ready  smile.  The  two  were,  as  we 
have  seen,  not  far  apart  in  age,  John  Langdon 
being  now  thirty-five,  John  Wentworth,  thirty- 
eight.  The  crisis  was  too  grave  for  diplomatic 
circumlocution.  The  Committee  drove  straight 
to  the  object  of  their  visit.  The  temper  of  the 
Assembly  was  too  fiery  to  allow  calm  discussion 
of  the   matters  set  forth   in    his   Excellency's 


394       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

message.  They  would  not  answer  for  the 
consequences  if  the  members  proceeded  forth- 
with to  business.  John  Langdon  was  a  lover 
of  liberty.  He  was  also  a  lover  of  fair  play, 
and  so  far  as  was  practicable  in  the  present  ex- 
cited state  of  public  feeling,  a  lover  of  peace 
and  concord.  He  strongly  recommended,  and 
his  colleagues  agreed  with  him,  that  the  session 
be  postponed  for  a  month.  After  a  little  par- 
leying the  Governor  acquiesced  in  the  propos- 
ition. He  was  confident,  at  heart,  of  winning 
his  people  back  to  their  allegiance.  Before  the 
month  was  half  gone,  another  organised  exhi- 
bition of  popular  feeling,  engineered  as  before, 
by  substantial  citizens,  and  led  by  Langdon 
and  Sullivan,  heated  the  blood  of  town  and 
Colony.  The  fortifications  of  Jerry's  Point, 
one  of  the  harbour  defences,  were  demolished  ; 
more  muniments  of  war  fell  to  the  portion  of 
the  insurgents. 

The  crowning  insult  to  King  and  to  Gov- 
ernor came  in  May  of  1775.  Colonel  Fen- 
ton,  "a  well-known  and  well-hated"  British 
officer,  was  dining  with  the  Governor,  when  a 
mob  collected  in  front  of  the  Great  House, 
trained  a  field-piece  upon  it,  and  demanded 
the  loyalist's  person.      Before  the  host  could 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses    395 


interfere  to  prevent  him,  Colonel  Fenton 
coolly  walked  out  of  the  front  door  and  gave 
himself  up.  He 
was  hurried 
away  under 
guard  to  Exeter. 
Stung  and  hu- 
miliated as  he 
was  by  these  re- 
peated outrages, 
John  Went- 
worth was  suffi- 
ciently master  of 
himself  to  essay 
further  concilia- 
tion of  the  turb- 
ulent populace. 
Langdon  still 
held  to  the  opin- 
ion that  it  would 
be  unsafe  to  bring  the  Convention  together 
at  present,  and  the  Governor  once  more  post- 
poned the  session,  this  time  until  July. 

"  Before  the  day  of  assembling  came,  the  last  Royal 
Governor  [of  New  Hampshire]  had  fled  to  the  protec- 
tion of  H.  M.  Frigate  Scarborough.  The  people  at  last 
were  kings,  responsible  only  to  themselves."    • 


JOHN  WENTWORTH,  LAST  ROYAL 
GOVERNOR  OF  N.  H. 


396         More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Personally, — and  I  would  fain  believe  that 
my  reader  is  with  me, — I  own  to  much  and 
sympathetic  interest  in  this  special  Royal  Gov- 
ernor. All  that  we  gather  concerning  him 
shows  us  a  right  goodly  figure,  debonair  and 
dashing,  as  might  well  be  in  one  richly  en- 
dowed by  nature  and  circumstance  with  gifts 
that  captivate  his  fellow-men  and  all  classes  of 
women. 

A  local  historian  treats  us  to  a  diverting  ac- 
count of  John  Wentworth's  marriage,  which 
set  gossiping  tongues — hardly  stilled  from  dis- 
cussion of  his  uncle's  escapade — to  wagging 
hotly  and  furiously.  The  nephew  and  suc- 
cessor of  Benning  Wentworth  was  unhappy 
in  his  first  love,  the  lady  jilting  him  to  marry 
Colonel  Atkinson  of  Portsmouth.  Two  years 
after  Wentworth  returned  from  England,  Gov- 
ernor of  New  Hampshire  and  Royal  Surveyor 
of  the  Woods  of  North  America,  Colonel  At- 
kinson died.  I  copy  the  rest  of  the  tale  from 
Rambles  about  Portsmouth  : 

"  The  widow  was  arrayed  in  the  dark  habiliments  of 
mourning,  which,  we  presume,  elicited  an  immense 
shower  of  tears,  as  the  fount  was  so  soon  exhausted. 
The  next  day  the  mourner  appeared  in  her  pew  at  church 
as  a  widow.    But  that  was  the  last  Sabbath  of  the  widow. 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses    397 

On  Monday  morning  there  was  a  new  call  for  the  serv- 
ices of  the  milliner,  the  unbecoming  black  must  be  laid 
aside  and  brighter  colours,  as  becomes  a  Governor's 
bride,  must  take  its  place." 

She  espoused  Governor  Wentworth  in 
Queen's  Chapel  exactly  ten  days  after  her 
first  husband's  demise. 

The  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  Province  was 
gorgeously  bedight  in  a  white  cloth  coat, 
trimmed  with  "  rich  gold  lace,"  white  silk 
■"  stocking-breeches,"  and  embroidered  blue 
silk  waistcoat  coming  down  to  his  thighs. 
His  hat  was  "  recockt  "  for  the  occasion,  and 
caught  up  at  the  side  with  gold  lace,  button, 
and  loop.  .  His  bonny  brown  hair  was  tied  in 
a  queue  with  three  yards  of  white  ribbon. 

They  were  married  by  the  same  clergyman 
to  whom  Longfellow  introduces  us  in  Lady 
Wentworth  : 

"  The  rector  there,  the  Reverend  Arthur  Brown 
Of  the  Established  Church  ;  with  smiling  face, 
He  sat  beside  the  Governor  and  said  grace." 

As  a  sequitur  to  this  second  unconventional 
performance  of  the  Governors  Wentworth, 
our  local  chronicle  relates  : 


398       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

"  Rev.  Arthur  Brown  may  have  been  excited  beyond 
his  wont  by  the  celerity  of  the  proceedings,  considering 
the  mourning  so  hastily  put  off.  Perhaps  he  was  solilo- 
quising on  the  course  of  human  events  and  wondering 
what  might  happen  next.  Be  that  as  it  may,  he  wan- 
dered, absent-mindedly,  down  the  steps  after  the  wed- 
ding ceremony,  and  falling,  broke  his  arm." 

This  marriage  extraordinary  took  place  in 
1769.  The  new  Lady  Wentworth  queened  it 
superbly  in  the  provinces,  and  when  she  ac- 
companied her  husband  to  England  in  1775, 
became  one  of  the  ladies-in-waiting  to  the 
Queen  of  George  III.  She  lived  to  extreme 
old  age.  Their  only  son  died  before  either  of 
the  parents. 

"  For  a'  that  an'  a'  that,"  we  dismiss  the 
bold  bridegroom  from  our  pages  regretfully. 
Compared  with  Edmund  Andros  of  New  Eng- 
land, Berkeley  and  Dunmore  of  Virginia,  and 
Leisler  of  New  York,  he  was  a  gentle  and 
beneficent  ruler,  and  deserved  to  be  held  in 
affectionate  remembrance  by  those  he  had 
served.  His  property  was  confiscated  after 
his  flight  to  England;  he  returned  to  Amer- 
ica as  Lieutenant-Governor  of  Nova  Scotia 
in  1792,  was  made  a  baronet  in  1795,  and 
died  in  Halifax  in   1820,  aged  eighty-three. 


I 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses   401 

Although  we  have  the  story  of  Lady  Went- 
worth the  first  at  our  finger's  ends,  we  think 
more,  and  tenderly,  of  Governor  Benning's 
nephew  in  visiting  Wentworth  Hall,  at  Little 
Harbour.  It  is  an  irregular  group  of  build- 
ings that  does  not  warrant  the  poet's  descrip- 
tion, 

"  A  noble  pile, 
Baronial  and  colonial  in  its  style." 

The  several  parts  composing  it  seem  to  have 
been  thrown  together,  rather  than  arranged  in 
obedience  to  any  architectural  design.  There 
were  originally  fifty-two  rooms ;  now  there  are 
but  forty-five.  Rising  ground  hides  the  house 
from  the  road,  but  it  is  open  toward  the  sea  on 
two  sides.  John  Wentworth  stabled  his  horses 
in  the  extensive  cellars  after  the  era  of  popular 
tumults  began.  Thirty  horses  could  be  com- 
fortably housed  here.  The  ancient  council- 
chamber  is  in  admirable  preservation.  It  is 
an  imposing  apartment,  finished  in  the  best 
style  of  the  last  century.  The  fine  mantel 
represents  a  year's  work  with  knife  and  chisel. 
In  the  billiard-room  hangs  the  familiar  por- 
trait of  Dorothy  Quincy,  the  "  Dorothy  Q  "  of 
Holmes's  delightful  verses. 


402       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

The  present  owner  of  Wentworth  Hall,  Mr. 
Coolidge,  formerly  of  Boston,  is  most  hospit- 
able to  those  inquisitive  strangers  whose  desire 
to  behold  the  time-honoured  precincts  springs 
from  reverent  interest  in  the  past  it  commem- 
orates. 

As  we  sit  upon  the  sofa  in  the  spacious 
drawing-room,  so  deftly  restored  and  so  jeal- 
ously protected  that  we  might  be  gazing  upon 
wainscot  and  ceiling  with  Martha  Hilton's 
housewifely  eyes,  or  with  the  satisfied  regards 
of  Colonel  Atkinson's  late  relict,  we  hearken 
to  another  and  yet  more  sensational  legend 
than  that  perpetuated  by  Longfellow. 

According  to  this,  Governor  Benning  Went- 
worth— a. widower  made  childless  by  the  death 
of  three  sons — cast  approving  glances  upon 
Molly  Pitman,  a  lass  of  low  degree,  who  was 
betrothed  to  a  certain  Richard  Shortridge,  a 
mechanic,  and  therefore  in  her  own  rank  of 
life.  Her  persistent  refusal  of  the  great  man 
so  incensed  him  that,  by  his  connivance,  a 
press-gang  was  sent  to  the  house  of  Short- 
ridge and  carried  him  off  to  sea.  After  sun- 
dry transfers  from  one  ship  to  another,  he 
gained  the  good-will  of  his  commanding  officer, 
who  listened  patiently  to  his  piteous  tale. 


OLD   MANTEL  IN  THE  COUNCIL-CHAMBER  OF  WENTWORTH   HALL 


403 


I 

< 


i 
n 

I 


)n  and  Wentworth  Houses   405 

way,  my  lad,  and  we  won't  pursue 
you,"  he  practical  advice  of  the  superior. 

Ri  *  Shortridge  was  not  slow  in  taking 

the  frie  1y  hint.  Upon  his  return  to  Ports- 
mouth, }*.c  found  his  Molly  faithful,  and  mar- 
ried her. 

t<-  w?c.  after  this  most  unhandsome  behav- 
iour up.  n  the  Governor's  part  (for  which  we 
were  not  prepared  by  Longfellow,  et  als),  that 
he  espc      ;d  Martha  Hilton. 

As  they  would  have  phrased  it,  the  Ports- 
mouth people  had  no  stomach  for  diverting 
tales  of  any  kind,  for  gossip  of  marrying  and 
giving  in  marriage,  of  singing  men  and  sing- 
ing women.  All  this  was  vanity  of  vanities 
while  the  Id  government  was  going  to  pieces 
under  the  1,  and  the  seafaring  qualities  of  the 
hastily  constructed  raft  of  the  new  were 
problematical. 

John  Langdon  and  John  Sullivan  were  com- 
missioner to  the  first  Continental  Congress  in 
May,  177  conferring  there  with  Patrick  Henry, 
Richard  Henry  Lee,  Caesar  Rodney,  Samuel 
Adams,  Ge  orge  Washington,  and  others.  Lang- 
don was  af  home  again,  July  3d.  We  are  in- 
debted to  ~/lr.  Corning  for  part  of  a  letter 
which  shows  us  the  moved  depths  of  a  nature 


406       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

that,  up  to  this  time,  has  seemed  quiet  to  cold- 
ness, self-contained  to  austerity  : 

"  The  low  mean  revenge  and  wanton  cruelty  of  the 
Ministerial  sons  of  tyranny  in  burning  the  pleasant 
Town  of  Charlestown  Beggars  all  Description.  This 
does  not  look  like  the  fight  of  those  who  have  so  long 
been  Friends,  and  would  hope  to  be  Friends  again,  but 
rather  of  a  most  cruel  enemy,  tho'  we  shall  not  wonder 
when  we  Reflect  that  it  is  the  infernald  hand  of  Tyranny 
which  always  has,  and  Ever  will  delluge  that  part  of  the 
World  (which  it  lays  hold  of)  in  Blood.  .  .  .  I  am 
sorry  to  be  alone  in  so  great  and  important  Business  as 
that  of  representing  a  whole  Colony,  which  no  man  is 
equal  to,  but  how  to  avoid  it,  I  know  not.  ...  I 
shall  endeavor,  as  far  as  my  poor  abilities  will  admit  of, 
to  render  every  service  in  my  power  to  my  Country." 

In  1776,  he  was  appointed  by  Congress  to 
superintend  the  building  of  the  frigate  Raleigh, 
and  did  not  return  to  Philadelphia  for  some 
months.  To  this  absence  was  due  the  mis- 
fortune that  his  name  did  not  take  its  rightful 
place  among  the  Signers  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  He  was  made  Speaker  of  the 
New  Hampshire  House  of  Representatives  in 
1776  and  in  1777. 

"  He  was  no  orator,"  says  his  biographer, 
"  and  scarcely  a  fair  talker." 

The  exigency  of  Burgoyne's  march  towards 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses   407 

New  England,  and  the  unreadiness  of  the 
patriots  to  meet  him  induced  the  Committee 
of  Safety  to  recall  the  Provincial  Assembly  in 
haste.  The  summons  got  the  members  to- 
gether in  three  days'  time,  but  their  alacrity  in 
obeying  the  call  was  not  expressive  of  the 
state  of  their  spirits.  Men's  hearts  were  fail- 
ing them  for  fear.  What  hope  of  success- 
ful resistance  had  companies  of  raw  militia, 
hurriedly  drawn  together,  and  commanded  by 
provincial  officers,  when  opposed  by  the  flower 
of  the  English  army  in  an  overwhelming  ma- 
jority as  to  numbers?  A  more  despondent 
and  woe-begone  set  of  representatives  was 
never  collected  in  the  Assembly  Hall.  Lang- 
don sat,  silent  and  observant,  in  the  Speaker's 
chair  until  the  prevalent  discouragement  began 
to  take  unto  itself  words.  Then  the  patriot 
who  was  "  scarcely  a  fair  talker"  sprang  to  his 
feet,  the  fire  of  a  Henry  in  his  eyes,  the  ring 
of  Henry's  eloquence  upon  his  tongue.  With- 
out preamble  or  the  waste  of  a  word,  he  flung 
out  the  briefest  and  most  pertinent  speech 
ever  uttered  in  any  Legislature : 

"  /  have  three  thousand  dollars  in  hard  money  !  I 
will  pledge  my  plate  for  three  thousand  more.  I  have 
seventy  hogsheads  of  Tobago  rum,  which  shall  be  sold 


408       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

for  the  most  it  will  bring.1  These  are  at  the  service  of 
the  State.  If  we  succeed  in  defending  our  firesides  and 
homes,  I  may  be  remembered.  If  we  do  not,  the 
property  will  be  of  no  value  to  me.  Our  old  friend 
Stark,  who  so  nobly  sustained  the  honour  of  our  State  at 
Bunker  Hill,  may  be  safely  intrusted  with  the  conduct 
of  the  enterprise, — and  we  will  check  the  progress  of 
Burgoyne  !  " 

The  effect  was  electric.  The  House  re- 
solved itself  into  a  Committee  of  the  Whole 
and  ordered  the  entire  militia  of  the  State  to 
be  formed  into  two  brigades.  The  command 
was  given  by  acclamation  to  Stark.  As  I 
have  said,  John  Langdon's  money  equipped 
a  volunteer  battalion.  John  Langdon  in  per- 
son led  one  company  at  Bennington.  It  is 
with  a  thrill  of  genuine  satisfaction  that  we 
read  of  Colonel  Langdon's  presence  at  the  sur- 
render of  Burgoyne  at  Saratoga  and  that  to 
him  was  committed  the  honourable  task  of  bear- 
ing the  articles  of  the  terms  of  capitulation 
from  the  American  general's  headquarters  to 
the  British 'forces.  We  hear  of  him  again, 
fighting  under  his  old  colleague,  General  Sulli- 
van,   in    Rhode    Island.     Then,    to  him   was 

1  Portsmouth  distillers  and  merchants  had  just  raised  the  price  of 
rum  to  an  extravagant  figure  in  anticipation  of  the  demands  of  the 
army  for  "  the  essential  concomitant  to  war  in  those  days.''' 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses   409 

assigned  by  Congress  the  congenial  task  of 
supervising  frigate-building,  enlisting  marines, 
and  providing  guns  and  ammunition  for  the 
war-vessels  when  built. 

When  the  war  was  over,  he  was  president  of 
a  State  convention  to  consider  the  vexed  ques- 
tion of  paper  money,  and  again,  a  delegate  to 
the  United  States  Congress  to  deliberate  upon 
certain  points  of  difference  between  that  body 
and  New  Hampshire.  I  have  noted  as  one  of 
the  interesting  coincidences  in  the  history  of 
the  State  that  his  name  was  the  first  signed 
to  the  Federal  Constitution. 

When  the  political  outlook  was  least  promis- 
ing, and  just  before  the  impassioned  upspring- 
ing  of  patriotic  fervor  that  threw  his  worldly 
all  into  the  trembling  scale  of  national  exist- 
ence, he  had  married  Elizabeth  Sherburne, 
daughter  of  John  and  Mary  Moffat  Sherburne. 
Near  the  close  of  the  war  the  Langdon  Man- 
sion in  Pleasant  Street  was  completed,  the 
building  having  been  often  interrupted. 

November,  1  789,  Washington,  who  had  been 
inaugurated  as  President  of  the  United  States 
in  April  of  that  year,  wrote  in  his  diary  of  a 
Sunday  spent  in  Portsmouth.  There  had 
been  a  triumphal  reception  of  the  President  on 


4io       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

Saturday,  in  which  Colonel  Michael  Went- 
worth,  Lady  Benning  Wentworth's  second 
husband,  was  chief  marshal.  General  John 
Sullivan  was  Governor  of  the  State,  and,  with 
the  marshal  and  ex-Governor  John  Langdon, 
accompanied  Washington  to  "  the  Episcopal 
church  under  the  incumbency  of  Mr.  Ogden, 
and  in  the  afternoon  to  one  of  the  Presbyterian 
or  Congregational  churches,  in  which  a  Mr. 
Buckminster  preached." 

Upon  this  occasion,  the  President  was  at- 
tired in  a  suit  of  black  velvet,  with  diamond 
knee-buckles.  Tobias  Lear,  a  native  of  the 
important  seaport  town,  was  with  his  chief. 

The  Presidential  party  was  entertained  by 
Mr.  Langdon  and  his  wife  in  the  home  we 
visit  in  Pleasant  Street,  a  residence  his  Excel- 
lency was  pleased  to  pronounce  the  "  hand- 
somest in  Portsmouth."  The  toothed  cornices 
of  drawing-room  and  hall,  the  massive  doors 
and  thick  partition-walls  were  the  same  then 
as  we  see  them  now.  There  are  bits  of  Colo- 
nial furniture  in  every  room,  each  having  its 
story.  The  whole  house  is  in  splendid  preserv- 
ation, a  fit  and  enduring  type  of  the  estate  of 
the  man  who  built  and  occupied  it  when  fortune 
and  fame   were   in   their  zenith.       No   citizen 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses   41* 

had  deserved  better  of  his  compatriots,  and 
when  he  threw  open  for  the  first  time  the  great 
doors  of  the  Pleasant  Street  mansion,  his  heart 
was  full  of  grateful  appreciation  of  the  manner 
in  which  they  had  tried  to  recompense  him  for 
lavish  expenditure  of  wealth,  for  valour  in  the 
field,  and  wise  counsels  in  the  halls  of  public 
debate.  It  was  his  hour  of  triumph,  glad  and 
full,  the  day  of  prosperity  in  which  none  could 
have  blamed  him  for  thinking,  if  he  had  not 
said  it, — "  I  shall  never  be  moved." 

Those  of  his  blood,  although  not  his  lineal 
descendants,  still  dwell  under  the  stately  roof. 

Of  them  and  of  the  homestead  we  shall 
learn  more  in  the  next  chapter. 


XIV 

THE  LANGDON  AND  WENTWORTH  HOUSES 
IN  PORTSMOUTH,  NEW  HAMPSHIRE 

(Concluded) 

SENATOR  MACLAY,  of  Pennsylvaina, 
whose  acquaintance  we  made  in  our  chap- 
ters upon  the  Carroll  homesteads,  was  not,  as 
we  know,  an  admirer  of  John  Adams  and  some 
other  dignitaries.  We  have  from  his  caustic 
pen  a  sketch  of  the  dinner  customs  of  the  rich 
and  great  in  the  last  decade  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  are  grateful,  even  though  the 
tendency  of  the  clever  skit  be  to  lower  the 
greatest  man  of  the  country  a  quarter-degree 
in  our  imaginations.  The  scene  was  the 
dining-room  of  the  Presidential  mansion  in 
Philadelphia,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Langdon 
were  among  the  bidden  guests.  It  is  in  their 
company,  therefore,  that  we  witness  what  went 
on  at  the  state  banquet. 

412 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses   4J3 

"  The  room  " — Maclay  complains — "  was 
disagreeably  warm." 

Then  we  have  the  menu  : 

"  First  was  soup  ;  fish,  roasted  and  boiled  meats — 
gammon  [that  is,  ham,  probably  Old  Virginia  ham]  fowls, 
etc.  The  middle  of  the  table  was  garnished  in  the  usual 
tasty  way,  with  small  images,  flowers,  (artificial)  etc. 
The  dessert  was,  first,  apple  pies,  puddings,  etc.  ;  then, 
ice-creams,  jellies,  etc.  ;  then,  water-melons,  musk 
melons,  apples,  peaches,  nuts.  It  was  the  most  solemn 
dinner  ever  I  sat  at.  Not  a  health  drank — scarce  a 
word  said,  until  the  cloth  was  taken  away.  Then,  the 
President,  taking  a  glass  of  wine,  with  great  formality, 
drank  to  the  health  of  every  individual,  by  name, 
around  the  table  (!) 

"  Everybody  imitated  him — changed  glasses  ;  and 
such  a  buzz  of  '  Health,  Sir  ! '  and  '  Health,  Madam!  ' 
and  'Thank  you,  Sir!'  and  'Thank  you,  Madam!' 
never  had  I  heard  before. 

"  Indeed,  I  had  like  to  have  been  thrown  out  in  the 
hurry  ;  but  I  got  a  little  wine  in  my  glass,  and  passed 
the  ceremony.  The  bottles  passed  about,  but  there  was 
a  dead  silence  almost.  Mrs.  Washington  at  last  with- 
drew with  the  ladies.  I  expected  the  men  would  now 
begin,  but  the  same  stillness  remained.  The  President 
told  of  a  New  England  clergyman  who  had  lost  a  hat 
and  wig  in  passing  a  river  called  '  the  Brunks,'  [qucere, 
the  Bronx  ?]  He  smiled,  and  everybody  else  laughed. 
The  President  kept  a  fork  in  his  hand,  when  the  cloth 
was  taken  away,  I  thought  for  the  purpose  of  picking 
nuts.  He  eat  no  nuts,  but  played  with  the  fork,  striking 
on  the  edge  of  the  table  with  it." 


414       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

This  is  delightful !  It  is  also  seriously  sug- 
gestive of  facts  which  are  generally  ignored 
when  we  speak  of  Washington's  administration. 
The  hero  ceased  to  be  a  demi-god  in  becom- 
ing Chief  Magistrate  of  the  crude  Republic. 
What  the  New  Hampshire  Legislature  objur- 
gated as  a  u  spirit  of  malignant  abuse,"  walked 
openly  in  the  land,  and  was  especially  rampant 
in  high  places.  To  this  era  belongs  the  anec- 
dote of  John  Adams's  private  ebullition  of 
jealous  contempt  when  the  Father  of  his 
Country  was  nominated  for  a  second  term. 
Chancing  to  be,  as  he  supposed,  alone,  in  a 
room  where  the  most  conspicuous  decoration 
was  a  portrait  of  the  successful  nominee,  Mr. 
Adams  is  said  to  have  walked  up  to  it  and 
shaken  his  fist  in  the  impassive  face  : 

"  Oh  !  you  d — d  old  mutton-head  !  If  you 
had  not  kept  your  mouth  so  closely  shut,  they 
would  have  found  you  out  !  " 

The  connection  of  the  profane  story  with 
the  ponderous  festivities  so  well  depicted  by 
Maclay  that  we  yawn  while  we  laugh  is 
obvious. 

John  Langdon,  when  elected  for  the  second 
time  to  the  Senate,  was  honestly  opposed  to 
Washington's  administration,  and  did  not  cloak 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses   4*5 


his  hostility.  The  passage  of  the  Jay  treaty 
was  the  signal  for  a  display  of  partisan  fury, 
imperfectly  suppressed  until  the  unpopular 
measure  afforded 
a  pretext  for  the 
eruption. 

This  celebrated 
treaty,  known  by 
the  name  of  the 
then  Minister  to 
the  English 
Court,  deter- 
mined the  eastern 

boundary   of    the  i   #  ^^vJI 

State  of  Maine ; 
awarded  to  the 
United  States 
$  1 0,000,000  as  re- 
prisal for  the  property  of  private  citizens 
captured  unlawfully  by  British  cruisers  ;  and 
certain  Western  forts  occupied  by  British  gar- 
risons were  given  up.  Thus  far  the  advantage 
to  the  United  States  was  unequivocal.  Joined 
to  these  provisions,  however,  were  clauses  ex- 
cluding United  States  vessels  from  the  ports 
of  Canada,  and  restricting  the  lucrative 
West  India   trade.      No  security    against    the 


GOV.   JOHN    LANQDON 

FROM  A  PAINTING  BY  GILBERT  STUART 


4i 6       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

impressment  of  sailors  was  offered,  and  there 
was  equal  neglect  with  respect  to  such  neutrality 
laws  as  regulated  British  and  French  priva- 
teers. 

When  the  Jay  treaty  was  approved  by  the 
Senate  and  signed  by  the  President,  a  wild 
wave  of  excitement  rushed  over  the  country. 
Mass  indignation  meetings  were  held  in  every 
city,  and  angry  mobs  wreaked  their  wrath 
upon  the  property  of  legislators  who  had  for- 
warded the  measure.  John  Langdon  had 
fought  valiantly  against  it  in  the  Senate,  and 
had  an  enthusiastic  ovation  upon  his  return  to 
Portsmouth. 

In  connection  with  this  demonstration  came 
the  first  proof  to  him  of  the  uncertainty  of 
popular  favour.  Other  portions  of  the  State 
saw  things  in  a  different  light  from  that  in 
which  they  appeared  in  the  capital.  The  dis- 
senting Senator  was  hung  in  effigy  in  one  town, 
and  at  the  next  session  of  the  Legislature 
resolutions  were  passed  affirming  the  confid- 
ence of  that  body  in  "  the  virtue  and  ability 
of  the  minister  who  negotiated  the  Treaty  ; 
the  Senate  who  advised  its  ratification,  and 
the  President,  the  distinguished  friend  and 
Father  of  his  Country." 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses   41? 

The  tide  had  turned.  John  Langdon  was 
a  politician  instead  of  a  patriot,  "a  partisan," 
to  quote  Mr.  Corning,  "  whose  hand  was  against 
all  who  did  not  think  and  act  as  he  did.  He 
had  taken  a  leading  part  in  the  political  war- 
fare, and  he  must  abide  the  inevitable  hostility 
of  his  former  friends." 

And  again,  of  him  at  a  later  date  of  the 
troublous  career  upon  which  this  partisanship 
had  cast  him  : 

"  His  ideas  of  civil  service,  as  applied  to 
office-holders,  were  Draconic.  He  is  on  record 
as  declaring  that  he  hoped  to  live  to  see  a 
change  in  men,  from  George  Washington  to 
door-keepers." 

It  is  an  extraordinary  testimony  to  the 
hold  this  opponent  of  Washington  and  ally  of 
Madison  and  Jefferson  had  gained  upon  the 
confidence  of  the  bulk  of  his  fellow-citizens, 
by  his  probity  and  his  personal  gifts,  that  he 
was  again  elected  to  the  Legislature,  and  for 
two  years  served  as  Speaker  of  the  House. 
Moreover,  he  was  chosen  Governor  in  1802, 
"  receiving  nearly  half  the  entire  vote,"  and 
was  a  successful  candidate  for  the  guberna- 
torial office  three  times  afterward — namely,  in 

1803,  1804,  and  1805. 
27 


4*8       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

In  1812,  he  declined  the  nomination  as  can- 
didate for  the  Vice-Presidency,  with  Madison 
as  President  upon  the  ticket. 

"  I  am  now  seventy-one  years  of  age,"  he 
wrote,  "  my  faculties  blunted,  and  I  have  lived 
for  the  last  forty  years  of  my  life  in  the  whirl- 
pool of  politics,  and  am  longing  for  the  sweets 
of  retirement.  .  .  .  To  launch  again  upon 
the  sea  of  politics  at  my  time  of  life  appears 
to  me  highly  improper." 

Less  than  a  month  later  than  the  date  of 
this  simple  and  dignified  letter,  he  put  pen  to 
paper  in  a  very  different  spirit.  He  had 
always  been  an  ardent  admirer  of  James 
Madison,  yet  a  campaign  libel  declared  that 
he  had  declined  to  run  for  the  Vice-Presidency 
11  because  of  his  disapproval  of  Madison's 
course."  In  repelling  the  charge,  John  Lang- 
don  affirmed  that  he  considered  his  "  great 
and  good  friend,  Mr.  Madison,  one  of  our  great- 
est statesmen,  an  ornament  to  our  Country, 
and  above  all,  the  noblest  work  of  God,  an 
honest  man." 

There  is  sad  "acrimony  in  one  of  the  con- 
cluding sentences  of  the  last  public  deliverance 
of  this  other  "  honest  man." 

11  As  our  patience  is  worn  out,  and  we  have 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses   4l9 


'O 


drunk  the  dregs  of  the  cup  of  humiliation,  if 
we  now  act  with  spirit  and  decision,  we  have 
nothing  to  fear." 

Those  who  sigh  sentimentally  for  the  purity 
and  calm  of  those  elder  days  of  our  Republic, 
would  do  well  to  study  the  history  of  the  ad- 
ministrations of  our  first  four  presidents  and 
the  private  correspondence  of  the  men  who 
then  ruled  and  fought,  and  who  suffered  "  the 
stings  and  arrows  of  outrageous "  calumnies, 
such  as  are  not  peculiar  to  our  times,  or  to 
any  particular  time. 

Our  oft-quoted  travelled  friend,  the  Mar- 
quis de  Chastelleux,  who  seems  to  have  left 
no  notable  nook  or  family  unvisited,  was  mar- 
vellously taken  with  John  Langdon,  whom  he 
met  in  1780  or  1781. 

"  After  dinner,"  he  says,  "we  went  to  drink  tea  with 
Mr.  Langdon.  He  is  a  handsome  man,  and  of  noble 
carriage  ;  he  has  been  a  member  of  Congress,  and  is  now 
one  of  the  first  people  of  the  Country ;  his  house  is  elegant 
and  well  furnished,  and  the  apartments  admirably  well 
wainscoted  ;  he  has  a  good  manuscript  chart  of  the  har- 
bour of  Portsmouth.  Mrs.  Langdon,  his  wife,  is  young, 
fair,  and  tolerably  handsome,  but  I  conversed  less  with 
her  than  with  her  husband,  in  whose  favour  I  was  preju- 
diced from  knowing  he  had  displayed  great  courage  and 
patriotism  at  the  time  of   Burgoyne's  expedition.     For, 


420       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

repairing  to  the  Council  Chamber,  of  which  he  was  a 
member,  and  perceiving  that  they  were  about  to  discuss 
some  affairs  of  little  consequence,  he  addressed  them  as 
follows  : 

"  '  Gentlemen,  you  may  talk  as  you  please  ;  but  I  know 
that  the  enemy  is  on  our  frontiers,  and  I  am  going  to 
take  my  pistols  and  mount  my  horse  to  combat  with  my 
fellow-citizens.' 

"  The  greatest  part  of  the  members  of  the  Council  and 
Assembly  followed  him,  and  joined  General  Gates  at 
Saratoga.  As  he  was  marching  day  and  night,  reposing 
himself  only  in  the  woods,  a  negro  servant  who  attended 
him  said  to  him,  '  Master,  you  are  hurting  yourself  ;  but 
no  matter,  you  are  going  to  fight  for  Liberty.  I  should 
suffer  also  patiently  if  I  had  Liberty  to  defend.'  '  Don't 
let  that  stop  you,'  replied  Mr.  Langdon  ;  '  from  this 
moment  you  are  free.'  The  negro  followed  him,  behaved 
with  courage,  and  has  never  quitted  him. 

"  On  leaving  Mr.  Langdon's,  we  went  to  pay  a  visit  to 
Colonel  [Michael]  Wentworth,  who  is  respected  in  this 
country,  not  only  from  his  being  of  the  same  family  as 
Lord  Rockingham,  but  from  his  genuine  acknowledged 
character  for  probity  and  talents." 

We  have  a  last  view  of  Portsmouth's  most 
distinguished  citizen  in  the  diary  of  his  almost 
lifelong  friend,  Governor  Plumer.  The  date 
is  July  23,  1816  : 

"  Visited  L.  He  is  so  literally  broken  down  in  body 
ami  mind  that  it  gave  me  pain  to  behold  the  wreck  of 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses   421 

human  nature  in  a  man  who  had  been  distinguished  for 
the  elegance  of  his  person  and  the  offices  he  had  held  in 
public  life." 

He  lived  on  thus  for  three  years  longer, 
"  civil,  kind,  and  affectionate,  and  tho'  weak 
in  mind,  yet  not  foolish,"  until  he  passed  away, 
in  the  seventy-ninth  year  of  his  age.  He  was 
borne  from  his  beautiful  home  in  Pleasant 
Street  to  his  last  resting-place,  amid  the  firing 
of  minute-guns  from  the  navy-yard,  the  display 
of  bunting  at  half-mast  from  public  offices  and 
private  houses,  and  all  the  other  tokens  of 
general  mourning. 

"  Every  mark  of  respect  was  rendered  to 
the  memory  of  the  distinguished  patriot  who 
had  done  so  much  for  the  welfare  of  his  coun- 
try and  the  good  of  his  fellow-citizens." 

The  handsome  homestead  in  Pleasant  Street 
has  sheltered  a  great  companyof  "  honourables  " 
in  its  long  day.  Louis  Philippe  was  Mr.  Lang- 
don's  guest  while  in  America  ;  Washington 
and  his  aids,  Lafayette,  de  Chastelleux,  and 
every  other  foreigner  of  distinction  who  took 
Portsmouth  en  route  in  his  tour,  broke  bread 
with  the  hospitable  owner,  and  was  ministered 
to  by  his  amiable  and  accomplished  wife. 
After  Mr.   Langdon's  death  it  was  for  many 


422       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

years  the  residence  of  that  kindly  despot,  the 
Reverend  Charles  Burroughs,  D.D.,who  "ruled 
like  a  king  the  little  literary  circle  in  Ports- 
mouth of  which  he  was  undisputed  head." 

Ever  since  the  death  of  Dr.  Burroughs's 
widow,  the  house  has  been  the  property  of 
Woodbury  Langdon,  Esq.  of  New  York  City, 
As  he  has  another  country  seat  near  Ports- 
mouth where  he  prefers  to  reside,  the  home- 
stead is  presided  over  by  his  sister  and  brother, 
whose  patient  courtesy  to  curious  and  senti- 
mental visitors  is  proverbial. 

The  Reverend  Dr.  Alfred  Elwyn  of  Phila- 
delphia, whose  summer  home  is  just  outside  of 
Portsmouth,  is  a  great-grandson  of  John  Lang- 
don, his  grandmother  having  been  the  only 
child  of  John  and  Elizabeth  Sherburne  Lang- 
don, who  married  Thomas  Elwyn,  Esq.,  of 
Canterbury,  England.  A  daughter  of  Dr. 
Elwyn  is  the  wife  of  Woodbury  Langdon, 
Esq.,  mentioned  above. 

Dr.  Burroughs  was  Rector  of  St.  John's 
Church,  one  of  the  most  important  features  of 
a  city  which  is  as  redolent  of  ancient  story  as 
of  the  sweet  salt  waves  that  bathe  her  feet 
and  send  coolness,  health,  and  strength  through 
her  streets. 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses   425 

For  St.  John's  Chapel — where  it  may  still 
be  seen — was  bought  by  Dr.  Burroughs,  in 
1836,  the  "first  organ  that  ever  pealed  to  the 
glory  of  God  in  this  country." 

It  was  imported  in  1713  by  Mr.  Brattle  of 
Boston,  who  left  it  in  his  will  to  the  well- 
known  old  Brattle  Street  Church,  provided 
"they  shall  accept  thereof,  and  within  a  year 
after  my  decease,  procure  a  sober  person  that 
can  play  skillfully  thereon  with  a  loud  noise." 

No  skill  could  draw  out  the  loud  noise 
now,  but  the  notes  coaxed  forth  by  our  re- 
spectful fingers  are,  even  yet,  tuneful,  justifying 
the  original  owner's  pride  and  Dr.  Burroughs's 
purchase. 

Yet,  as  we  walk  over  to  Queen's  Chapel  to 
see  the  relic,  we  are  amused  by  the  story  that 
the  "o'er-pious  "  Brattle  Street  people  left  the 
legacy  boxed  up  for  eight  months  before  the 
more  progressive  could  overcome  the  prejudice 
against  the  use  of  "  an  ungodly  chest  of 
whistles"  in  the  Meeting  House. 

The  Reverend  Dr.  Hovey,  the  present  rec- 
tor of  St.  John's,  is  an  indefatigable  and  most 
intelligent  archaeologist  and  antiquarian,  and 
within  a  few  years,  valuable  discoveries  have 
been   made    in    the    venerable     building    and 


426       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

adjoining  grounds.  Not  the  least  interesting 
of  these  is  a  set  of  mural  tablets  recording 
several  donations  to  church  and  parish.  One 
which  instantly  seizes  upon  our  attention  is  a 
bequest  from  Colonel  Theodore  Atkinson,  in 
i  754,  of  a  valuable  tract  of  land  upon  which 
tombs,  vaults,  and  monuments  may  be  erected. 
He  also  bequeathed  ^200,  the  interest  to 
be  used  in  the  purchase  of  bread  for  the  poor 
of  the  church,  the  distribution  to  take  place 
each  Sunday.      The  custom  is  still  kept  up. 

Another  discovery  made  this  year  is  of  a 
subterranean  passage  leading  to  the  church- 
yard from  the  basement  of  the  church. 

In  St.  John's  churchyard  sleep  the  fathers 
of  what  was  but  a  seaside  hamlet  when  they 
helped  to  make  it.  The  Wentworth  vault 
holds  Benning  Wentworth  and  his  brother 
Michael,  with  the  woman  whom  both  had  to 
wife.  The  last  Royal  Governor,  the  rollick- 
ing John  of  our  liking,  was  buried  in  Nova 
Scotia,  severed  from  home  and  kindred  in 
death  as  in  life  by  loyalty  to  the  King  to  whom 
he  owed  his  preferment.  The  Reverend 
Arthur  Brown  is  here,  and  Colonel  Atkinson, 
who  would  have  had  no  place  in  the  Annals  of 
Portsmouth  but  for  his  complaisance  in  making 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses    427 


way  for  the  former  lover  of  his  easily  consoled 
relict. 

The  American  branch  of  the  Langdon  family 
has  been,  for  over  a  hundred  years,  nobly  re- 
presented by  Woodbury 
Langdon — the  brother 
of  John — and  his  de- 
scendants. He  was  the 
junior  of  John  by  two 
years,  having  been  born 
in  1738.  He  married  at 
twenty-seven — twelve 
years  before  his  brother 
entered  upon  the  holy 
e  s t  a  t  e — S  a  r  a  h ,  the 
daughter  of  Henry  and  Sarah  Warner  Sher- 
burne. Ten  children  were  the  fruit  of  this 
union  : 

(1)  Henry  Sherburne,  who  married  Ann 
Eustis,  a  sister  of  Governor  William  Eustis. 
(2)  Sarah  Sherburne,  married  to  Robert 
Harris.  (3)  Mary  Ann,  died,  unmarried. 
(4)  Woodbury,  died,  unmarried.  (5)  John, 
married  to  Charlotte  Ladd.  (6)  Caroline, 
married  to  William  Eustis,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  Sur- 
geon in  the  Revolutionary  War;  Member  of 
Congress,  1 801-1805  and  1 820-1 823;  Secretary 


SHERBURNE  COAT-OF-ARMS 


428       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

of  War,  1 807-1 813  ;  Minister  to  Holland,  1814- 
181 8  ;  Governor  of  Massachusetts  in  1823.  (7) 
Joshua,  died,  single.  (8)  Harriet,  died,  single. 
(9)  Catherine  Whipple,  married  Edmund 
Roberts.  (10)  Walter,  married  Dorothea, 
daughter  of  John  Jacob  Astor. 

Woodbury  Langdon  was  a  man  of  singular 
personal  beauty,  and  exquisite  charm  of  man- 
ner, a  family  characteristic,  and  hereditary.  He 
was  a  delegate  to  the  Continental  Congress, 
1 779-1  780  ;  Counsellor  of  State  of  New  Hamp- 
shire, 1  781-1784;  President  of  New  Hampshire 
Senate,  1784;  Judge  of  Supreme  Court  of 
New  Hampshire,   1 782-1 791. 

His  wealth  and  taste  enabled  him  to  erect 
for  his  private  residence  the  building  which 
has  been  converted  into  the  palatial  Rocking- 
ham Hotel.  The  mansion  cost  Judge  Lang- 
don $30,000,  and  was  built  with  bricks  brought 
from  England.  It  was  supposed  to  be  fire- 
proof, and  far  surpassed  in  dimensions,  decora- 
tions, and  general  architectural  beauty  any 
other  house  in  New  Hampshire — or  indeed  in 
New  England.  It  was  finished  in  1785  and 
kept  up  in  superb  style  during  Judge  Lang- 
don's  lifetime.  After  his  death  and  the  mar- 
riage and  dispersion  of  the  large  family  that 


WOODBURY    LANQDON,  1775 

FROM  A  PAINTING  BY  JOHN  SINGLETON  COPLEY 


429 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses   43 l 

had  filled  it,  his  sons  sold  it  (in  1 8 10)  toThomas 
Elwyn,  Esq.,  the  husband  of  Elizabeth  Lang- 
don, the  only  child  of  Governor  John  Langdon. 
In  1830,  it  passed  out  of  the  family  and  since 
then  has  been  used  as  a  hotel.  In  1884,  a  fire 
damaged  the  building  greatly,  but  spared  the 
fine  wainscots  and  the  magnificent  octagonal 
dining-room,  the  marvel  of  ancient  Portsmouth 
and  the  pride  of  the  modern  city.  It  is  still 
the  study  of  architects  from  near  and  from  far  ; 
and  an  enduring  memorial  to  the  intelligence 
and  refinement  of  the  first  proprietor. 

The  portrait  of  Judge  Woodbury  Lang- 
don has  a  distinguished  place  in  the  State 
House  at  Concord,  the  present  capital  of 
New  Hampshire. 

The  name  of  Edmund  Roberts  who  married 
Judge  Langdon's  youngest  daughter  is  insep- 
arably associated  with  our  earliest  diplomatic 
relations  with  the  Far  East.  Born  in  Ports- 
mouth in  1784,  he  was  offered  an  appoint- 
ment as  midshipman  in  the  United  States 
Navy  at  thirteen,  but  preferred  a  place  in  the 
merchant  service,  dividing  his  time  between 
England  and  South  America  until  he  was 
twenty-four  years  old.  He  amassed  a  large 
fortune  and  became  a  heavy  ship-owner  before 


432       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

he  utilised,  in  diplomatic  life,  the  results  of  his 
wide  observation  and  deep  thought  respecting 
our  foreign  commercial  relations.  He  was 
sent  upon  a  special  embassy  by  the  Govern- 
ment to  make  treaties  with  Muscat,  Siam,  and 
Cochin  China  in  1830,  and  again  in  1835,  "to 
-visit  Japan  with  like  purpose,"  but  died  at 
Macao  before  the  work  was  fully  accomplished. 
A  posthumous  volume  under  the  caption  of 
Embassy  to  Eastern  Courts,  details  his  successes 
during  a  voyage  of  twenty-six  months. 

A  memorial  window  of  exquisite  design  and 
execution  in  St.  John's  Church,  Portsmouth, 
was  presented  to  the  parish  by  Mrs.  J.  V.  L. 
Pruyn  in  honour  of  her  grandfather,  the  first 
American  diplomatist  in  Asia,  whose  unfinished 
work  was  consummated  many  years  later  by 
Matthew  Perry  and  Townsend  Harris. 

One  of  his  surviving  daughters  married  the 
Reverend  A.  P.  Peabody,  D.D.,  of  Harvard 
University;  another,  Harriet  Langdon,  be- 
came the  wife  of  the  Honorable  Amasa  Junius 
Parker  of  Albany. 

The  marriage  ceremony  of  Judge  and  Mrs. 
Parker  was  performed  by  Rev.  Dr.  Burroughs, 
who  had  also  baptised  the  bride.  The  first 
ten  years  of  their  married  life  were  spent  in 


WINDOW  TO  EDMUND  AND  CATHERINE   LANQDON  ROBERTS  IN 
ST.  JOHN'S  CHURCH 


433 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses   435 

Delhi,  New  York.  In  rapid  succession  Mr. 
Parker  was  chosen  a  Regent  of  the  University 
of  New  York,  made  Vice-Chancellor  and  a 
Judge  of  the  Circuit  Court,  Member  of  Con- 
gress, 1838-9  ;  then,  Judge  of  the  Supreme 
Court.  He  was  one  of  the  founders  of  the 
Albany  Law  School,  and  for  twenty  years 
one  of  the  professors.  His  contributions  to 
the  legal  literature  of  the  United  States  were 
important. 

In  1884,  Judge  and  Mrs.  Parker  celebrated 
their  golden  wedding  at  the  "  The  Cliffs,"  the 
Newport  home  of  their  daughter,  Mrs.  J.  V. 
L.  Pruyn.  There  were  then  living  of  the 
ten  children  born  to  the  honoured  parents  : — 
Mrs.  Pruyn,  General  Amasa  Junius  Parker,  Jr., 
Mrs.  Erastus  Corning,  and  Mrs.  Selden  E. 
Marvin.  The  fine  "  Holiday  Window  "  in  St. 
John's  Church,  Portsmouth,  to  the  memory  of 
Edmund  Roberts  and  his  wife  was  erected  by 
Mrs.  Pruyn  in  honour  of  the  golden  wedding. 
The  figures  therein  depicted  are  those  of  St. 
Edmund  and  St.  Catherine,  with  their  legends. 
The  harmonious  family  group  assembled  upon 
the  memorable  occasion  I  have  chronicled,  was 
broken  by  the  death  of  Mrs.  Parker,  June  28, 
1889. 


436       More  Colonial  Homesteads 

The  Albany  Argus,  in  a  biographical  sketch 
of  one  who  was,  for  forty  years,  a  ruling  in- 
fluence in  Albany  society,  says  : 

"  Mrs.  Parker  had  strong  religious  convictions  and 
high  ideals,  and  was  possessed  of  great  force  of  char- 
acter and  the  many  graces  and  charms  that  are  em- 
bodied in  the  character  of  a  good  woman.  She  was  a 
woman,  also,  of  extraordinary  unselfishness  and  always 
solicitous  of  the  comfort  and  welfare  of  others." 

How  far  the  eulogium  understates  the  sterl- 
ing qualities  and  exceeding  lovableness  of  the 
subject,  those  who  were  admitted  to  her  home 
and  a  place  in  the  true,  tender  heart,  can  best 
say. 

Judge  Parker  died  May  13,  1890,  and  Mrs. 
Erastus  Corning  very  suddenly  at  Easter-tide, 
1899.  To  the  rare,  fine  spirit  whose  life  was  a 
continual  benediction  to  church,  community, 
and  home,  the  translation,  upon  the  dearest 
and  most  joyful  of  Christian  festivals,  was  a 
beautiful  passing  over,  not  a  passing  out. 

In  reviewing  the  history  of  the  New-World 
lines  of  the  Langdon  race,  the  believer  in 
hereditary  influences  in  shaping  and  colouring 
human  destiny  finds  abundant  confirmation  of 
what  is  no  more  theory,  but  a  science  which  is 
not  far  from  exactness. 


MRS.  WOODBURY    LANQDON 

FROM  A  PAINTING  BY  JOHN  SINGLETON  COPLEY 


437 


Langdon  and  Wentworth  Houses   439 

In  addition  to  the  pure  strong  flood  poured 
by  Woodbury  Langdon  into  the  minds  and 
souls  of  his  descendants,  Judge  Parker's  child- 
ren have  drawn  high  principles  and  fine  mental 
traits  from  their  mother's  forbears, — Governor 
Thomas  Dudley  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay 
Colony  ;  Governor  Theophilus  Eaton  of  the 
New  Haven  Colony,  and  Lieutenant-Governor 
Gibbins  of  the  Province  of  New  Hampshire; 
also,  from  Henry  Sherburne  of  Portsmouth, 
New  Hampshire,  a  Judge  and  a  member  of 
His  Majesty's  Privy  Council,  and  a  delegate  to 
the  famous  Congress  held  in  Albany  in  1754. 


INDEX 


Adams,  John,  249,  256,  264,  271, 
412,  414 

Aken,  Miss,  52 

Albany,  14,  17,  20,  187 

Anderson,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  San- 
ders, 175 

Anderson,  William,  175 

Andre,  Major  John,  2,  76 

Anne,  Queen,  2 

Arnold,  Benedict,  2,  361 

Atkinson,  Colonel  Theodore, 
396,  402,  426 

Ayers,  Dr.,  143 


8 


Baker,  Louisa,  234,  240-242 
Baker,  Mr.,  235 
Ball,  Mrs.  Julia,  80 
'Ball,  Mary,  98 
Balls,  The,  98 
Banning,    Mrs.   Henry   Geddes, 

331-333,  339,  342,  343 
Barrett,  Dr.,  291 
Barron,  Commodore,  267 
Bassett,  Richard,  357 
Bayard,    Hon.  Thomas  F.,  297, 

304,  307,  308,  362 
Bayard,  Samuel  J.,  139 
Beekman,    Catherine     Sanders, 

175 
Beekman,  Girard,  175 


Beekman,  John  Jacob,  175 
Beekman,  Mrs.  Maria  Glen,  175 
Belmont  Hall,  347,  348,  360,  361, 

363,  3D7,  369,  37o,  377 
Belvedere,  264,  269 
Beverwyck,  155,  157 
Blennerhassett,  88,  89 
Bonaparte,  Elizabeth  Patterson, 

264,  267 
Bonaparte,  Jerome,  264 
Bond,  Dr.  Thomas,  300 
Botetourt,  Lord,  74 
Boudinot,    Elias,  105,    106,  117, 

130 
Bradford,  The  Misses,  327 
Brant,  Joseph,  24,  25,  42,  45,  47, 

49,  55 
Brant,    Molly,    24-29,     47,    58, 

63 
Brant,  Nickus,  24 
Brattle,  Mr.,  425 
Brent,  Robert,  229 
Brooke,  Clement,  225 
Brooke,  Elizabeth,  228 
Brooklandwood,  263 
Brown,  (Rev.)  Arthur,  382,  397, 

398,  426 
Brown,  Mrs.  W.  R.,  148 
Burgoyne,    General,    216,     221, 

406,  408 
Burr,  Aaron,  84,  88,  89,  264 
Burroughs,  (Rev.)  Charles,   422, 

425,  432 
Butler,  (Colonel)  John,  42,  60 


441 


442 


Index 


Butler,  Walter,  20,  42,  50,  181 
Butler's  Ford,  50 
Butler's  Homestead,  51 
Butlers,  The,  66,  72 
Byrd,  Mrs.  Charles  Willing,  93 
Byrd,  William  Evelyn,  86 
Byrd,  William  (III.),  66 
Byrds,  The,  66,  72 

C 

Caldwell,  James,  52 

Calvert,  Charles,  Lord  Balti- 
more, 226,  227,  233,  279,  290 

Canajoharie,  24,  156 

Carroll,  Catherine,  253,  256,  257 

Carroll,  Charles  (I.),  225,  227, 
228,  277 

Carroll,  Charles  of  Annapolis, 
224-228,  230,  235,  237,  252, 
253,   280 

Carroll,  Charles  of  Carrollton, 
219,  224,  225,  227,  228,  236, 
242,  243,  245,  246,  249-251, 
256-258,  261-265,  267-273, 
278,280,  283 

Carroll,  Charles  of   Homewood, 

22Q,    234,    253,    254,  258,   26l, 
262,  270,  280,   283 

Carroll,  Charles  (V.),    264,  267, 

275 
Carroll,  Charles  (VI.),  275,  277 
Carroll,  Charles  (VII.),  276 
Carroll,  Daniel,  228,  254,  257 
Carroll,  Elizabeth  Brooke,   237, 

238 
Carroll,  Henry,  227,  228 
Carroll,  James,  228 
Carroll,  John,  229 
Carroll,   (Governor)    John    Lee, 

275-277 
Carroll,  Madame  Mary,  228 
Carroll,  Mary,  253,  255,  256 
Carroll,  Mrs.  Anita  Phelps,  275 
Carroll,   Mrs.  Caroline  Thomp- 
son, 275 
Carroll,  Mrs.  Charles  (Sr.),  253 
Carroll,  Mrs.  Charles  (Jr.),  253 


Carroll,  Mrs.  Charles  (VI.),   275 
Carroll,  Mrs.  John  Lee,  275 
Carroll,  Mrs.  Marion   Langdon, 

276 
Carroll,     Mrs.       Mary      Carter 

Thompson,  275 
Carroll,  Mrs.  Mary  Digges  Lee. 

275,  277 
Carroll,  Mrs.  Susanne  Bancroft, 

276 
Carroll,  Philip  Acosta,  276 
Carroll,  Royal  Phelps,  276 
Caton,  Betsey,  266 
Caton,  Emily,  266 
Caton,  Louise,  267 
Caton,  Mary,  267 
Caton,    Mrs.    Mary,    263,    266, 

267 
Caton,  Richard,  255 
Caughnawaga,  4,  57 
Chase,  Mr.  Samuel,  249 
Chastelleux,  Marquis  de,  65,  151, 

419,  421 
Chaumiere    du    Prairie,   77,    78, 

80,  84,  87,  88,  90,  91,  95,  96 
Cherokees,  The,  7 
Cherry  Valley,  50 
Chew,  Chief-Justice     Benjamin, 

286,  301,  302,  340 
Chew,  Harriet,  262,  263,  283 
Chew,  "  Peggy,"  262,  264 
Chew,  Samuel,  286 
Chew,  The  Misses,  301 
Chew  House,  The,  286 
Clark,  Hon.  John,  363 
Claus,  (Colonel)   Daniel,  12,  47, 

58,  60,  73,  179,  180 
Claus,  Nancy,  29 
Clay,  Henry,  88 
Clayton,  John  Middleton,  286 
Clinton,  Sir  Henry,  2,19,  21,  22, 

30,  76,  197,  204 
Cliveden,  262,  286 
Cloke,  Ebenezer,  363,  364,  368 
Cloke,  John,  348,  360,  363 
Cloke,  Mrs.  John,  370 
Collins,  Dr.  William,  348,  363 


Index 


443 


Collins.  (Governor)  Thomas,  347 

-350,   353,   357,  35S,  361-363, 

369 
Collins,  Mrs.  Thomas,  368 
Comegys,  Hon.  Joseph  P.,  286 
Constitution  Hill,  108 
Cook,  Elizabeth,  363,   364,  367, 

368 
Cook,     (Governor)    John,     346, 

347,  358,  369 
Cooke,  Rachel,  240,  242,  243 
Cooke,  William,  263 
Cookham,  98,  99 
Coolidge,  T.  Jefferson,  402 
Corning,  Charles  R.,  405,  417 
Corning,     Mrs.      Erastus,     435, 

436 
Cornwallis,  Lord,  120,  133,  151, 

153 
Covenhoven,  Mr.  John,  120,  121 
Creighton,  Judge,  89 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  68 
Cromwell,  Thomas,  67,  68 
Crown   Point,    17,    20,    73,   204, 

38i 
Cummins,  George  W.,  374 
Custis,  Nelly,  262 
Cuthbert,  Alexander,  136 
Cuthbert,  Susan  Stockton,  136 

D 

Dame,  Rev.  G.  W.,  364,  367 
Darnall,  Henry,  225 
Darnall,  Mary,  225,  243-245 
Darnall,  Miss,  255 
Darnall,  Mrs.,  252,  253,  283 
Dartmouth,  The  Earl  of,  39 
Dartmouth  College,  25,  31,  391 
Decatur,    Commodore    Stephen, 

142,  267 
Decatur,  Mrs.,  267 
De  Graff,  176 
Delancey,  James,  2 
Delanceys,  The,  28,  197 
Denny,  Mrs.  Anne,  374,  375 
Dod,  Mrs.  W.  A.,  148 
Doughoregan  Chapel,  253 


Doughoregan   Manor,   227,  230, 

246,    253,   258,   261,  267,    268, 

274-277 

j    Dover  (Del.),  285,  286,  301,  315 

Dow,  Lorenzo,  325,  326 

Dudley,     (Governor)      Thomas, 

439 
Dupont,  Mr.,  316,  319,  320 


Eaton,    (Governor)   Theophilus, 

439 
Eden  Hill,  289,  294 
Edwards,  Mrs.,  59,  60 
Elwyn,  (Dr.)  Alfred,  422 
Elwyn,  Thomas,  422,  431 
Eustis,  Mrs.  Caroline  Langdon, 

427 
Eustis,  William,  427 
Everard,  Sir  Richard,  69 
Everett,  Edward,  90 


Fenton,  Colonel,  394,  395 
Field,  Mrs.  Abigail,  in,  136 
Field,  Robert,  136 
Five  Nations,  The,  22 
Fonda,  57 

Franklin,  (Dr.)  Benjamin,  251 
Frederic,  Harold,  28 
Frelinghausen,  Dominie,  208 
Fulton,  Robert,  183 


Gage, 
Gates 
Gibbi 

439 
Glen, 

der 

162 
Glen, 
Glen, 

166 
Glen, 


General,  73 

,  (General)  Horatio,  420 
ns,     Lieutenant-Governor, 

Alexander  Lindsay  ("  San- 
Leendertse "),      156-160, 

Alexander  (II.),  170 
(Captain)  Alexander,  160, 

Catherine  Dongan,  159 


444 


Index 


Glen,  Deborah,    171,   173,  174, 

186 
Glen,  Jacob,  170,  171,  215 
Glen,  Jacob  Alexander  (I.),  160 
Glen,     Jacob    Alexander    (II.), 

170 
Glen,  John  (II.)  170,  174,  175 
Glen,  (Tudge)  Elias*  I7° 
Glen,   (Judge)  John  (III.),  170, 

174 
Glen,   (Major)  John  Alexander, 

160,  162-166,  169,  170,174 
Glen,  Mrs.  Anna  Peek,  160,  162, 

164,  166 
Glen,  Sarah,  175 
Gordon,  Lord  Adam,  29,  113 
Grange,  Anita  Maria,    Baronne 

de  la,  276 
Grange,  Louis,  Baron  de  la,  276 
Grant,    Mrs.    Anne   ("of    Lag- 

gan  "),   27,  187,  188,  195-197, 

212-215,  220 
Griffis,  William  Elliot,  63,  64 


II 


Hageman,  John  Frelinghuys-en, 

128,  140,  143 
Hale,  Major,  386 
Hamilton,  Alexander,  219,  220, 

257 
Hampton,  263 
Harper,  (General)  Robert  Good- 

loe,  257,  258,  270 
Harper,  Mrs.  Mary,  266,  267 
Harris,  Robert,  427 
Harris,  Sarah  Sherburne,  427 
Harris,  Townsend,  432 
Harrow  School,  69,  70 
Haslet,  (Colonel)  John,  287 
Herkimer,  County  of,   156 
Herkimer,  General,  60 
Hervey,     (Colonel)    Sir    Felton 

Bathurst,  267 
Hervey,  Mrs.,  272 
Hillhouse,     (General)    Thomas, 

56 


Hillhouse,    Miss  Margaret    P., 

iii 
Hilton,   Martha,  382,   385,  402, 

405 
Holmes,  Mrs.,  322 
"  Homestead,  The,"  263 
Homewood,  263,  264,  270,  280 
Hopkins,  Mrs.,  148 
Hovey,  Rev.  Dr.,  425 
Howard,  (Colonel)  John  Eager, 

263,  264,  269,  270 
Howe,  (General)  Sir  William,  2, 

122 
Howe,  Lord,  206,  207 
Howell,  Mrs.  Admiral,  148 
Howell,  Mrs.  F.  D.,  148 
Hunter,    Mrs.    Mary    Stockton. 

136 
Hunter,  Rev.  Dr.,  136 


Ilchester,  The  Earl  of,'  28 
Ingles,  (Rev.)  Charles,  302 
Iroquois,  The,  5,  19 
Irving,  Washington,  360,  375 

J 
Jackson,  (General)  Andrew,    84, 

145 
lames  River,  The,  65,  66 
Jay,  John,  251,  415,  4*6 
Jefferson,     Thomas,     264,     268, 

271,  332 
Johnson,   Ann  ("Nancy"),   12, 

47,  57,  58,  180 
Johnson,  (Captain)  Warren,  19 
Johnson  Castle,  8 
'Johnson,  Christopher,  1 
Johnson,  Fort,  14 
Johnson,   Guy,   12,    39,   42,   45, 

47,  58,  60 
Johnson  Hall,  6,   8,  13,  14,   17. 

18,    20,  28,   32,  35,  36,45-49, 

51,  52,  63,  73,  113 
Johnson,  Lady,  46 
Johnson,  Mary,  12,  29,  57,  $8 


Index 


445 


Johnson,  Mrs.,  12,  14,  57 
Johnson,  Sir  Adam  Gordon,  51 
Johnson,  Sir  John,    12,    29,   32, 

38,  39,  42,  45,  46,  48,  49,  51, 

55,  60,  181 
Johnson,  Sir  William,  1,  3-7,  9, 

10,  13,  17,  19,20,  22-24,  27-30, 

35-37,  40,  41,  47,    51,    55-57, 

59,  60,   63,  73,  113,   179,   192, 

204 
Johnson,  William,  25,  47 
Johnstown,  37,  57,  63 
Johnstown,  Episcopal  Church  of, 

45,  60,  64 
Jones,  John  Paul,  380 

K 

Kellogg,  (Rev.)  Charles  II.,  63 
Kemp,  Deborah,  166 
Kergolay,  Jean,  Comte  de,  275 
Kergolay,   Marie  Louise,    Com- 

tesse  de,  275 

L 

Lafayette,  Marquis  de,  46,  139, 

151,   268,  269,   333,   337,  340, 

421 
Lake  George,  25,  31 
Langdon,  Harriet,  428 
Langdon,  Henry  Sherburne,  427 
Langdon,  John,   382,   385,    386, 

389,   390,   392-395,   405,    407, 

408,   410,  414,  416-422,  427, 

43i 
Langdon,  John  (II.),  427 
Langdon,  Joshua,  428 
Langdon,  Mary  Anne,  427 
Langdon,  Mrs.  Ann   Eustis,  427 
Langdon,  Mrs.  Charlotte  Ladd, 

427 
Langdon,  Mrs,  Dorothea  Astor, 

428 
Langdon,   Mrs.   John,  410,  412, 

419 
Langdon,  Walter,  428 
Langdon,   Woodbury    (I.),    422, 

427,  428,  431,  439 


Langdon,  Woodbury  (II.),  427 
Langdon,  Woodbury  (III.),  422 
Langdons,  The,  386 
Latham,  Mary,  69 
Lear,  Eve,  367,  368 
Lear,  Tobias,  367,  410 
Lebanon,  31 
Lee,  (Colonel)  Charles,  205,  206, 

208,  214 
Lee,  Richard  Henry,  305 
Leeds,  Duke  of,  272 
Letcher,  .Mrs.  Anna  Meade,  89, 

9°,  93 
Lossing,  Benson  J.,  52,  57 
Louis  Philippe,  184,  337,  421 

M 

Maclay,  William,  256,  412-414 
Madison,  James,  268,  418 
Malpas,  Barony  of,  100 
Malpas,  Church  of,  100 
Malpas,  Parish  of,  101 
Marvin,  Mrs.  Selden  E.,  435 
Massie,  Elizabeth,  89 
Maycox,  65,  66,  74,  75,  79 
McGill,    Mrs.    Chancellor,    in, 

124,  136 
McKean,  Thomas,  305-307,  311, 

357,  369 
McTavish,     Mrs.     Emily,     272, 

279 
Meade,  Andrew,  68 
Meade,  David  (I.),  69 
Meade,   David  (II.),  65-67,  69- 

7i,  73-75,  77,  79,  84-90,  93~ 

95 
Meade,  David  (III.),  77,  88,  93 
Meade,  Elizabeth,  89 
Meade,  Everard,  72 
Meade,  Mrs.  David,  83,  84 
Meade,  Richard  Kidder,  70-72, 

76 
Meades,  The,  67,  68,  83,  85,  96 
Meredith,  Jonathan,  258 
Miller,  Betsey,  94,  95 
Mohawk  River,  2 
Mohawk,  Valley  of,  1 


446 


Index 


Mohawks,    Tribe  of,    5,    18,  19, 

155,  156,  158,  163 
Moor  Charity  School,  25,  42 
Moore,  Lady,  214,  216 
Moore,  Sir  Henry,  214,  216 
Morven,  no,  113,  114,  117,  119, 

120,    123,    124,    126,    128-130, 

139,  140,  142,  147,148, 151,  J52 
Mott,    Lucretia,    315,   316,   319, 

320 

N 

Nassau  Hall,  130 
Newcastle,  Duke  of,  19 
North,  Lord,  138 


O'Brian,  Lady  Susan,  28 
O'Brians,  The,  29 

Oriskany,  48 
Ossian's  Poems,  109 
Oswego,  19 

P 

Parker,  (General)  Amasa  Junius, 

435 
Parker,   (Hon.)   Amasa    Junius, 

432,  435,  436,  439 
Parker,  Mrs.  Harriet    Langdon, 

432,  435,  436  . 
Parkman,  Francis,  8,  n,  41 
Patterson,  Mrs.  Robert,  272 
Paulus,  24 

Peabody,  (Rev.)  A.  P.,  432 
Peale,  Charles  Wilson,  246 
Peale,  Rembrandt,  261 
Penn,  William,  40,  102,  285 
Perry,  Matthew,  432 
Peterson,  J.  Howard,  348 
Phillips,  Abigail,  104 
Phillipses,  The,  28 
Pintard,  Captain,  105,  153 
Pintard,  Louis,  105,  153 
Pise,  (Rev.)  Constantine,  274 
Pitman,  Molly,  402,  405 
Plumer,  Governor,  420 
Pontiac,  Conspiracy  of,   n 


Poplar  Grove,  322 
Portsmouth  (N.  H.),  381 
Potter,  John,  148 
Powis,  Lord,  226 
Princeton,  Battle  of,  122 
Princeton,  History  of,  128 
Princeton,   7 'he,  145 
Pruyn,    Mrs.  J.   V.   L.,  ii,    189, 
432,435 

R 

Randolph,    Richard,   of  Curies, 

72 
Randolphs,  The,  73 
Ranken,  Mary  Wallace,  261 
Read,  George,  305,  357 
Rensselaer,  Maria,  191 
Ridgely.  Ann  Moore,  290 
Ridgelv,  (Dr.)  Charles,  290 
Ridgely,  Henry  (I.),  288 
Ridgely,  Henry  (II.),  289 
Ridgely,  Henry  (III.),  289 
Ridgely,  Henry  (V.),  294 
Ridgely,  Henry  (VI.),  294,  322 
Ridgely,  Henry  Moore,   290-292, 

293,  3l6,  3>9,  320 
Ridgely,  Miss  316,  320 
Ridgely,  Mrs.  Dr.  Charles,  338, 

342 
Ridgely,  Mrs.  Henry  (Jr.),    287, 

321 
Ridgely,  MSS..  2S5,  287,  307 
Ridgely,    (Judge)  Nicholas  (I.), 

289/296,  297,  321,  331.  332 
Ridgely,  Nicholas  (II.),  290 
Robbins,  Herbert  1).,  276 
Robbins.  Mrs.  Mary  Helen,  276 
Roberts,  Hlon.)    Edmund.    42S. 

43L  435 

Roberts,  Mrs.  Catherine  Whip- 
ple, 428,   435 

Rochambeau,  Count  of,  65,  151 

Rodney,  Cresar  (I.),  297 

Rodney,  Caesar  (II.),  287,  290, 
297-299,  302-307,  3H-3I3, 
321,  331-333,  337,  340,  358, 
362,  369,  3. '6 


Index 


447 


Rodney.  Caesar  Augustus,  344 
Rodney,  Thomas,  297,  332 
Rodney,  William  (I.),  297 
Rodney,  \V;lliam  (II.),  297 
Rowland,  Kate  Mason,  225,  230, 

236,  241,  251 
Rowland,  Sarah,  307 
Rush,  (Dr.)  Benjamin,    114,  136 
Rush,  Mrs.  Julia  Stockton,  114, 

136 


Sanders,  Albertine  Ten  Broeck, 

175 
Sanders,  Anna  Lee,  176 
Sanders,  Barent,  175 
Sanders,  Charles  P.  (I.),  i?5 
Sanders     Charles   P.   (II.),   176, 

178,  182 
Sanders,  Deborah,  175 
Sanders,  Jacob  Glen  (I.),  175 
Sanders,  Jacob  Glen  (ID,  175 
Sanders,  John  (I.),  171,  172,  174 
Sanders,    John    (II.),     I75-I77, 

183 
Sanders,  John  (III.),  175,  l83 
Sanders,  Mrs.  Jacob  Glen,    173 
Sanders,  Peter,  175,  176 
Sanders,  Robert,  175 
Saratoga,  32 

Schenectady,  31,  155,  156,  158 
Schuyler,  Catalina,  191 
Schuyler,  Catherine  Van  Rensse- 
laer, 219 
Schuyler,  Elizabeth,  219 
Schuyler,  George  W.,  197,  213 
Schuyler,    Johannes,    191,     192, 

195,  214 
Schuyler,      "Madame"       Mar- 

garitta,  190-192,  195,  201-203, 

205-208,  212-216 
Schuyler,  Margaritta  (I.),  191 
Schuyler,    "  Margaritta,"  (III.), 

222 
Schuvler,  Pedrom,  207 
Schuyler,      Peter    ("  Quidor  "), 

191,  197 


Schuyler,  Peter  (II.),  191 
Schuyler,   (Colonel)  Philip,  191, 

195,  196,  198,  203,  205 
Schuyler,    (General)  Philip,   46, 

197,  214,  216,  219-222 
Schuyler,  Mrs.  Philip,  221 
Schuyler,  Richard,  213 
Scotia,  158,    159,    162,  164,  169- 

171,  174,  175,  181,  186 
Scott,  Robert  G.,  269 
Sherburne,  Elizabeth,  409 
Sherburne,  Henry,  439 
Sherburne,  John,  409 
Sherburne,  Mary  Moffat,  409 
Shields,  Rev.  Dr.,  151 
Shields,  Mr.,  291 
Shortridge,  Richard,  402,  405 
Six  Nations,  The,  30,  35,  46 
Smith,  (Captain)  John,  5,  380 
Smith,  (Hon.)  Horace  E.,  64 
Smith,  Samuel  Stanhope,  126 
Sparks,  Jared,  25 
Speakman,    Mrs.    Peterson,  358, 

363,  378 
Starke,  (General)  John,  381,  408 
Stockbridge,  31 
Stockton,  Abigail,  105,  153 
Stockton,  Anice  Boudinot,  107- 

109,    in,    118,   123,    124,  126, 

129,  130,  135,  136 
Stockton,  Bayard,  151 
Stockton,  David  de,  100 
Stockton,  (Sir)  Edward,  100 
Stockton,  Hannah,  105 
Stockton,  Job,  102 
Stockton,  John  (I.),  101 
Stockton,  John    (II.),    102-105, 

108 
Stockton,  John  (III.),  105 
Stockton,  John  Potter,  148 
Stockton,  John  W.,  118,  125 
Stockton,  Manor  of,  100 
Stockton,  Miss  Maria,  148 
Stockton,  Mrs.  Maria  Potter,  148 
Stockton,  Owen,  100,  101 
Stockton,  Philip,  106,  117 
Stockton,  Rebecca,  105 


448 


Index 


Stockton,  Richard  (I.),  101 
Stockton,    Richard    (II.),     102, 

103,  108 
Stockton,  Richard  (III.),  103 
Stockton,     Richard   (IV.),    105, 

108 
Stockton,   Richard  ("  The  Sign- 
er "),  106,  108,  no,   in,  117, 

Il8,  I20,   122,  126,  128 
Stockton,    Richard    (VI.),    119, 

130,  136,  139,  140 
Stockton,    Richard  (VII.),    140, 

148 
Stockton,   (Commodore)  Robert 

Field,  140-148,  154 
Stockton,      (General)       Robert 

Field,  148 
Stockton,  Samuel  Witham,  106, 

117 
Stockton,  Susannah  (I.),  103 
Stockton,    Susannah   (II.),    105, 

153 
"  Stone  Arabia,"  9 
Stone,  Herbert,  n,  18,  49 
Stony  Brook,  102 
Stuart,  Gilbert,  262 
Stuyvesant,  Peter,  155 
Sullivan,    (General)   John,    392, 

405,  408,  410 
"  Sycamore,"  89 


Ten  Broeck,  Helen,  182 
Ten  Broeck,  Jane  L.,  176 
Ten  Eyck,  Elsie  Glen,  175 
Ten    Eyck,    Myndart   Schuyler, 

175 
Tennent,  (Rev.)  William,  105 
Thackeray,  Dr.,  69,  71 
Thackeray,  William  Makepeace, 

70,  71 
Thompson,  Mrs.  W.  L.,  89 
Ticonderoga,  73,  205 
Townsend,  Charles,  112 
Townsend,  George  Alfred,  327 


Van  Cortlandt,  Cornelia,  214 
Van  Curler,  Arent,  155 
Van  Rensselaer,  Killian,  175 
Van  Rensselaer,   Mrs.  Margaret 

Glen,  175 
Van  Rensselaer,  Peter  Schuyler, 

175 
Van  Rensselaer,  Sarah,  175 
Van    Slichtenhorst,    Margaritta, 

191 
Vining,  (Captain)  Benjamin,  290 
Vining,  John,  290,  331,  339 
Vining,    John    Middleton,    290, 

.333 
Vining,  Mary  (I.),  302 
Vining,    Mary    (II.),    290,    331, 

333-335,  338-345 
Vining,   Mrs.    Mary   Middleton, 

331 
Virden,  Miss  Rose,  294 

W 

Wallace,  Mary,  261 

Warbridge,  289 

Warren,  Oliver,  22 

Warren,  (Sir)  Peter,  2-5,  14 

Warren  ton,  1 

Washington,  Augustine,  98,  99 

Washington,  George,  98,  99, 
122,  130,  135,  151,  179,  219, 
251,  262,  303,  304,  312,  357, 
359,  36o,  375,  376,  409,  410, 
414 

Washington,  John,  99 

Washington,  Lawrence,  99 

Washington,  Mrs.  George,  135, 
219,  413 

Waters,  Sarah,  73 

Wayne,  (General)  Anthony,  338- 
340,  342,  344 

Wellesley,  Marchioness  of,  272 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  267,  272 

Wells,  Eleazar,  52,  59 

Wells,  Mrs.  Eleazar,  59 


Index 


449 


Wells,  Mrs.  John  E.,  52 
Wentworth,     (Governor)      Ben- 

ning,   382,  385,  396.  40I,  402, 

426 
Wentworth,     Charles     Watson, 

Marquis  of  Rockingham,  386, 

420 
Wentworth,     (Governor)    John, 

385,   386,   389,   39C   392,  393, 

395-397.  401,  426 
Wentworth,  Lady,  398,  401 
Wentworth,   Michael,   385,  4!°, 

420,  426 
Wentworth,  Samuel,  385 
Westover,  65,  66,  79 
Wheelock,  Rev.  Dr.,  42 
Wilford,  Florence,  202 
William  and  Mary  College,  69, 

369 


Williams,  Eunice,  192 
Williams,  (Rev.)  Meade  C,  67, 

Williams,  Susan  Creighton,  79 
Wilson,  (General)  James  Grant, 

189 
Wissenberg,  Catherine,   11,    12, 

29,  58,  63 
Witherspoon,     Rev.     Dr.,     112, 

117 
Wolsey,  Cardinal,  67,  68 
Woodburn,  322,  326,  327 
Woodlawn,  374,  377.  378 
Wynkoop,  Mary,  290 
Wynkoop,  Phoebe,  290 


Younglove,  James  T.,  63 


